£105m mental health unit could be 'island'

NEWLY-BUILT SERVICE RISKS BEING MAROONED WITHOUT GOVERNMENT COMMITMENT TO MODERNISING HOSPITAL

- HELENA VESTY

MANCHESTER is now home to a state-of-the art mental health facility, but there are fears that the £105.9m inpatient unit could become an 'island; surrounded by crumbling 19th century buildings which make up the rest of the hospital site.

North View is a new mental health unit sitting in the North Manchester General Hospital (NMGH) grounds in Crumpsall.

But the opening of North View last month has been met with frustrations from senior NHS sources.

Hospital bosses built a state-of-the art facility to fit with the brand new hospital they were long promised, the money never came.

Now, experts fear that the £105m facility will be marooned as an 'island' of modernity.

The land occupied by the old mental health facilities is desperately needed to expand the rest of the decrepit Victorian hospital, say sources close to the project.

And if the government reneges on five years of pledges to rebuild the Victorian-era hospital, North View will stand on its own as the sole modern facility.

NMGH bosses have been waiting half a decade for the final approvals to start the transformation of the Crumpsall site, which was selected as one of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson's '40 new hospitals' in 2019.

To get ready for the major overhaul, later titled the New Hospitals Programme, a new mental health facility was planned for the north Manchester site.

Work began in 2022 to replace Park House, which housed ageing mental health wards at North Manchester General. The Park House buildings are now due to be demolished in the new year now North View has opened in its place.