Building work has got under way on a new state-of-the-art £17.7 million mental health hospital for elderly people in Birmingham.
The proposed national centre for excellence for old people’s mental health services is being built at the disused Moseley Hall Hospital site, in Alcester Road, Moseley.
Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust’s multi-million pound hospital scheme will create a new 54-bed unit, offering specialist services for inpatients, their carers and families.
Construction workers moved into the site this month and plan to complete the project by December next year.
Glynis Markham, the Mental Health Trust’s director of strategic delivery for older people services, said: “Today marks the move from the design and development phase to construction, which is exciting.
“This will be a unique development because it will provide a specialist centre which brings acute services and diagnostic facilities for managing physical and mental health issues together on the same site.”
Mental health problems become more common as people get older, and with the number of pensioners aged over 90 in England set to double over the next 30 years, facilities like the Moseley Hall development will be essential for the future and designed with this in mind.
The new hospital will sit alongside existing geriatric in-patient facilities provided on the site by South Birmingham Primary Care Trust. It will be housed in modern buildings with en suite single rooms, visitors’ facilities and a therapy suite.
Sue Turner, Trust chief executive, added: “This facility will take provision of older people’s mental health services into the 21st century.”
