GRAHAM-BAM Begins Construction of New Mental Health Inpatient Facility
Belfast, 8 December 2016 – Northern Ireland Health Minister, Michelle O’Neill, has cut the first sod for a new purpose built Acute Mental Health Inpatient Unit at Belfast City Hospital, to be built by the GRAHAM-BAM Healthcare Partnership.
The £30 million facility will provide inpatient services for acutely mentally ill adults within the Belfast Trust area and is expected to complete in late 2018. The new facility will have 74 acute mental health ensuite bedrooms including six psychiatric intensive care beds.
‘This modern facility will offer high standards of treatment and evidence-based interventions for people experiencing an acute phase of mental illness and will allow practical working with individuals and their families towards recovery in a specially designed therapeutic environment’, said Minister O’Neill.
Belfast Trust Chief Executive, Dr Michael McBride, concurred: ‘The unit will deliver a 21st century environment to support the treatment and care of severely mentally ill patients. The first purpose-built unit for acutely mentally ill adults within the Belfast area has been designed to ensure that the environment supports and improves every future inpatient’s experience and recovery.’
Representing GRAHAM-BAM Healthcare Partnership, Peter Reavey, Director, said: ‘GRAHAM-BAM Healthcare Partnership is delighted to be working with the Belfast Health & Social Care Trust in the delivery of this impressive new facility, which will bring consolidation, modernisation and centralisation of acute mental health care inpatient services to the community of Greater Belfast.’
The GRAHAM-BAM Healthcare Partnership is currently delivering a c £185 million four year framework at the Ulster Hospital. A seven storey, 30,000 m2 Inpatient Ward Block will open to patients in the new year and work has just begun on a new 31,000 m2 Acute Services Block which is expected to complete in Summer 2019.