Final preparations are being made for the opening of a new health and wellbeing hub in Hornchurch as it gears up to welcome its first patients next week. 

The first service to open on site will be St George’s Country Park Surgery – formerly known as Upminster Bridge Surgery – which is due to start seeing patients at its new practice building on Monday (4 November).

With construction work now complete, local NHS teams are this week putting the vital finishing touches to St George’s Health and Wellbeing Hub in Suttons Lane.

Once fully operational, the hub will provide access, seven days a week, to a wide range of high-quality health and wellbeing services all in one place; transforming the way health and care is delivered for around 250,000 people in Havering and surrounding areas. 

BHRUT will run the new Ageing Well Centre which will see elderly residents supported through a comprehensive assessment service designed to support their physical and mental health needs, and a Community Diagnostic Centre, which will carry out 38,000 additional scans and tests a year.

At the centre, patients will also be able to get scans and other diagnostic tests avoiding the need for extra visits to local hospitals and helping clinicians provide faster, joined-up advice and support as part of the ground-breaking integrated care model that will be pioneered on site. 

As well as these services, patients can also access outpatient, mental health, children’s and community services.

The hub will also provide space for local voluntary and community groups to deliver a range of activities to support people’s wider health and wellbeing needs; as well as a community café, multi-purpose education and meeting spaces, and a sensory, dementia-friendly communal garden.

Health and care partners worked together for several years to design the hub, which secured detailed planning approval from Havering council in 2022. It is backed by £17milllion of government funding and £21million from north east London partners.