Topping out ceremony for new health facility (From Bromsgrove Advertiser)

Topping out ceremony for new health facility

12:20pm Monday 11th March 2013 in News

A TOPPING out ceremony has been held at the construction site of a state-of-the-art mental health facility, at a Bromsgrove community hospital.

The Brook Haven unit at the Princess of Wales Community Hospital, off Stourbridge Road, is currently being refurbished and extended, and it is hoped work with be completed in the summer.

On Friday, March 8, Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust staff as well as builders from construction firm Kier Construction, celebrated the placing of most uppermost beam of the unit.

Brook Haven is being turned into a modern and environmentally friendly facility, radically changing the way patients receive care and support.

The facility cares for older adults, from across Worcestershire, with mental health issues including dementia, Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia - who can’t be supported in their own homes.

The unit features 30 en-suite bedrooms, large courtyards, an allotment, workshops, a 1960s-themed launderette and a conference room that can easily be converted into a cinema.

A competition is set to be launched later this month to name the new unit, and the two wards inside it.

Sarah Dugan, Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust's chief executive, said: “Despite the bad weather we’ve had the building is progressing at a pace and there is real excitement about what the new unit will do for older patients who have mental illnesses.

“The topping out ceremony is another key milestone in the build and is further indication that this really important development for older adult mental health services in Worcestershire, is now just around the corner.”

Gary Pearce, a Kier Construction director, added: “Now that the internal areas are being plastered you can begin to see the final shape of this state-of-the art centre of excellence.”