A new £105m mental health facility, backed by Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust, has been approved by their Trust Board and Manchester Health & Care Commissioning. The trust will now seek formal approval from NHS England and Improvement, with artists impressions of the new building already available.
The project is expected to receive £91.3m of government funding, with £14.6m worth of funding coming from the Trust, expecting to cost £105.9m in total.
Neil Thwaite, Chief Executive of Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We passionately believe this investment will greatly improve the quality of specialist inpatient mental health care and will enable us to build a therapeutic, modern environment for patients and workplace for staff.
“It is excellent news for people needing in-patient mental health services in Manchester and forms part of exciting regeneration plans being developed for the North Manchester hospital site.”
The new infrastructure will replace the current Park House mental health unit at North Manchester General Hospital and will see a complete rebuild of the facility but in a different location on site, minimising disruption to the day-to-day running of the hospital.
150 single en suite bedrooms will be built, over nine single-sex wards, and a purpose-built Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is also included in the plans. An assessment suite will also be installed for patients who need a safe environment.
Construction work is expected to start on the site in 2022, with 2024 as the date for the project to be completed.
The Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust was awarded a score of “good” by the Care Quality Commission in their latest report.
