A new secure autism unit is being built at Brooklands Hospital in Marston Green, Birmingham.
The £7m project, commissioned by Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust, includes the demolition of an existing structure on the hospital site and the construction of a single-storey building in its place.
Once completed, it will provide eight en-suite bedrooms, one of which will be used as a seclusion suite.
The hospital has been designed by Design Buro and will be built by Willmott Dixon.
Dan Doyle, operations director at Willmott Dixon, said: “Being a business with rich Birmingham heritage, it’s an honour to be playing a significant role in a local project that will enrich the community’s healthcare offering.
“The completion of the new building will enable Brooklands Hospital to provide a high-level service to its future patients in an environment that accommodates their specific needs, which is something we’re an expert in and are pleased to have been brought in to deliver.”
With land prices and the cost of outward expansion the dearer option, redeveloping a disused area of the Brooklands Hospital site is seen as a strategic and cost-effective move.
Due to be completed in the spring, the new building will provide a safe environment, with the addition of optional communal spaces.
Professor Ashok Roy OBE, consultant psychiatrist and associate medical director at the trust, said: “The new autism secure service fills the gap in service for a group of patients who have for a long time had poor access to services and have therefore languished in unsuitable surroundings such as prisons and distant hospitals.”