Assura Group completes its 100th healthcare project
Prestbury Medical Centre in Wolverhampton brings health services to the community
Assura has completed construction of the new Prestbury Medical Centre in Wolverhampton.
The facility is the developer’s 100th scheme and marks two decades delivering healthcare infrastructure in the UK.
The centre will provide a new home for two relocating GP practices, serving a growing patient list of over 14,500 people, and enabling additional health services to be moved out of hospital into a community setting.
Jonathan Murphy, chief executive of Assura, said: “We are proud to have supported the delivery of healthcare for two decades, creating high-quality premises that serve the needs of health professionals and patients in a primary care setting and generating value for shareholders.
“We have now completed 100 buildings over the course of our 20-year history – delivering modern, fit-for-purpose facilities which are vital for the long-term delivery of community health services that ease the pressures currently being faced by the NHS.”
The £6m forward-funded scheme accommodates the health needs of a growing local population, providing state-of-the-art, modern premises for over 14,500 patients.
And it sees two local surgeries relocating from previous premises that were not fit for purpose and, alongside facilitating critical GP services, will allow the provision of additional training capacity, a greater range of community and out-of-hospital services, as well as incorporating a telehealth hub to support digital health care delivery.
In line with Assura’s sustainability strategy, the building has been designed to achieve BREEAM ‘Excellent’ certification and an EPC rating of ‘A’.
These have been achieved through delivering an energy solution incorporating air source heat pumps, EV charging points, and use of natural ventilation, as well as 70sq m of photovoltaic solar panels.
The interiors also reflect the Designing for Everyone toolkit launched by Assura in 2022, which seeks to support GP practices in improving their environments for people with disabilities and conditions such as dementia, neurodiversity, and anxiety.
The building, developed under a forward-funding agreement with Medcentres, is 100% let to the GPs on a 25-year lease with open market rent reviews every three years and is a priority project for the NHS Black Country Integrated Care Board.