Longer term residents will be familiar with the two decade old debate and promises for the replacement of Dulwich Hospital with modern health services. Plans have come and gone and changed including public consultations and still nothing has appeared in the ground.
However the impressive new buildings on the Dulwich hospital site are an indication that things really are moving – for a new Charter School. But nothing yet for health services.
The local NHS has issued an update now saying that it has refined the list of services, in accordance with the results of the consultation, and calculated how many patients it needs the health centre to accommodate. That has helped it to determine how big the new building needs to be, and how big a site it needs to be built on.
The new build will be on the south-east corner of the Dulwich Hospital site and has been approved by NHS England and NHS Property Services. The local NHS expects to start building in April 2018.
The NHS will fund the building through a PFI (Private Finance Initiative) scheme funded through the NHS paying annual rent on the property for 25 years.
More information is available on the Southwark NHS site at http://www.southwarkccg.nhs.uk/our-plans/improving-services-in-dulwich-and-the-surrounding-areas/developing-our-plans/Pages/default.aspx