New health centre opens in Bournemouth

Thanks to a £1.9 million NHS investment, Banks and Bearwood Medical Practice, Dorset HealthCare and NHS Dorset have transformed the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council-owned building on Alma Road into a new Neighbourhood Health Centre.

The site has been unused since July 2023 following its closure. It will now be home to Banks and Bearwood GP practice and a range of community health services run by Dorset HealthCare, including: paediatric services; children’s speech and language therapy; podiatry; leg ulcer clinics; community oncology; heart failure clinics; health visiting, school nursing and district nursing and NHS talking therapies for mental health.

The site was officially opened by NHS Dorset’s associate director of Primary Care and Neighbourhood Health Estate Di McLaughlin, Banks and Bearwood GP partner Dr Yasser Kerim, Dorset HealthCare’s head of child and adolescent mental health services Helen Duncan-Jordan, the Trust’s head of capital delivery Paul Williams, architect Roy Brammer and surgery patient Gordon Rock.