Future Directives

The Health and WellBeing Centre

The Smethwick Wellbeing Centre will be a sustainable, landmark building at the entrance of Smethwick on Tollhouse Way. It will be a thriving, healthy environment serving the needs of the local community.

At its centre will be primary healthcare services for 25,000 people, a long term conditions hub - services for people with learning disabilities provided by Sandwell Asian Family Support Services SAFFS, together with retail and leisure facilities. It will also include the academic public health practice unit for the west midlands.

A development lead by a Community Interest Company, Pathfinder Healthcare Developments, it will incorporate innovative sustainable materials creating a carbon neutral footprint.
The Smethwick community includes a high proportion of people on relatively low income that are under served.

The World Health Organisation notes:

“Poorer people live shorter lives and are more often ill than the rich. This disparity has drawn attention to the remarkable sensitivity to health to the social environment” (Solid Facts – WHO, 2003).

Healthy Living Centres were initiated by the DoH in 1997 supported by the Big Lottery Fund. Heralded as “local flagships for health in the community reaching out to excluded people [being] powerful catalysts for change” (DoH, Our Healthier Nation).

The Smethwick Wellbeing Centre will incorporate the learnings from this £350m investment to provide a sustainable resource centre to improve peoples’ lives.

National and international research has evidenced that the most effective way to combat poverty and poor health outcomes is to combine services and activity and offer a quality of life solution.

The Wellbeing Centre will provide local services to the local population from a landmark building at the entrance to Smethwick on the Tollhouse Way, a key arterial road into Birmingham.

Our architects have created a 6,534 sq m location of which the local population will be rightfully proud. The leading international firm of surveyors, RLP, estimate the cost to be in the region of £15m.

We are seeking funding from NHS, local authorities, charities, retailers as well as commercial banks.

Building work is estimated to take 18 months following a year’s planning.

Primary Healthcare in India

The Indian and global health demographic is changing and long term conditions (LTCs) represent the next health challenge. In an environment where infectious diseases still prevail, an emerging LTC challenge will severely test future health resources. The growing urbanisation poses additional challenges to a middle class population that cannot access evidence based quality Primary and Preventative healthcare. This is the area that we intend to address for India and we recognise that large numbers of people require large and innovative solutions that can be implemented quickly and accurately.

The proposed model of care builds on the extensive experience of PHD working in challenging arenas; combining over 200 years professional healthcare experience with researched evidence on how to improve health outcomes. The resulting model of care is based on well tested UK primary care centres with a targeted Indian solution. It will provide the local communities there with a unique opportunity from day 1- by providing a large primary healthcare centre working to European and UK standards.