Tipton health centre to get £1.5m makeover

Bosses at Sandwell Primary Care Trust have applied to the council to extend and refurbish Neptune Health Park. The plans also show the charity Murray Hall Community Trust and the Citizens Advice Bureau will be moving out of the Sedgley Road West premises to create more space.

The centre provides GP services, podiatry, physiotherapy and x-ray services, and it also has facilities for minor surgery and a pharmacy. The trust hopes to build three extensions which will create a new entrance lobby with a canopy, a new waiting area and a clinical waste store.

The work will mean that they can increase the number of consulting rooms available for GPs and the other Primary Care Trust facilities, reorganise and improve the existing facilities to provide a more efficient and effective service and install an improved electronic check in service and hospital appointment booking service. In a report to council chiefs it states: "Modernisation is needed to bring the hospital up to the required current standards as far as possible within the constraints of the existing building, in order to improve the environment for patients and staff and to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the service provided."

Trust spokesperson Diane Harrison said: "Sandwell Primary Care Trust is investing £1.5m in a project to refurbish Neptune Health Park to provide improved services for patients. The work, which will be carried out between January and March 2013, will upgrade existing community healthcare facilities, and also provide extra rooms to enable practices at the centre to offer an increased number of outpatient appointments."

The news of the revamp comes a few months after transport bosses revealed they would be improving bus links with the centre. Centro and bus operators announced there would be more services to Sandwell Hospital, Neptune Health Park and Rowley Regis Hospital as well as improved links to rail and Metro services from October.