The new Marine Lake Health and Wellbeing Centre in West Kirby has been officially opened, on the day the NHS turned 75.
The centre is a partnership between Wirral Community Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust (WCHC), Marine Lake and Estuary Medical Practice and Age UK Wirral, and was first mooted a decade ago.
The multi-million pound building, built by Eric Wright Construction, brings together primary and community care in one place, as well as access to specialist health and care services.
It includes services for families with children, as well as podiatry, maternity care, community cardiology and district nursing, with staff working alongside GP’s.
Speaking to West Kirby Today at the opening, Wirral Community Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust Chief Executive Karen Howell said it is a major investment in local, community-based healthcare: “It’s far from just a GP surgery. The GP surgery is absolutely pivotal because access to wider NHS services is very often through GP’s. People trust their GP, they want to see their GP. What we’ve got now is the facility for those treatment plans that GP’s lead on to actually become real life in the building, almost on the same day, if not the same day.”
It replaces the previous practice building next to the Concourse, which was outdated and not fit for purpose.
Karen said the new site, which spans three floors, is already benefiting patients and staff: “An awful lot of time for our primary care colleagues, they couldn’t see as many patients as they wanted to as they were hot desking and sharing facilities. All of our therapists and nurses were cramped, they couldn’t meet each other because the rooms weren’t big enough to talk about their caseloads, to connect with each other.
“The whole experience of working there, never mind being a patient there, was not a great experience at all. I’ve spoken to a few of the residents today, and they say that as soon as they walk in the building they feel better, because it’s brighter and lighter and people are friendly because they want to come to work and they want to be here. The whole experience, even before they’ve sat down with a clinical professional to say I’ve got this, the whole experience is positive.”
The complex also includes a social space and cafe run by Age UK, which it is hoped will be used by people unsure of where to turn for help with other issues.
Karen said: “There’ll be somebody on site that can help them or signpost them to the right place, whether that is Citizens’ Advice, or something else. There’s a social space that helps people know that ‘well if I went there, there might be somebody to talk to’, or ‘if I went there might be somebody I could say ‘where do I get this, how do I get help for that’.”
Outside there is a ‘BeeWell Together’ garden, which is open for the community to come and use, featuring a range of plants and vegetable trugs for local people to grow their own.
Local resident Val Maher helped influence the design of the garden. She told West Kirby Today: “It was literally a piece of grass and always has been for as long as I can remember, so the idea of developing it into a garden was really special.
“I went to meetings and we talked through what we might do, and you might bring different generations together in that garden, because I think that’s really important in a community.”
The centrepiece of the outside space is a glasshouse ‘solardome’, which will also be used by local schoolchildren to learn about the environment in the garden.
Val added: “There are places where people can make new friends, or you can just sit quietly, and it’s also a place where the staff of the centre can come and have some respite from their day of work.”