Sixty jobs at new £7 million hospital planned for Carlisle
Last updated at 13:24, Wednesday, 18 November 2009
A new £7 million private hospital will be built in Carlisle if ambitious plans win approval from planners next month.
The hospital, on the site of the former Abbey Caldew Hospital in Dalston Road, will employ up to 60 people and ultimately have up to 22 beds, say bosses from Caldew Hospital Ltd, the company behind the plans.
The existing hospital will be demolished to make way for a brand new three-storey building, equipped with three operating theatres.
Managers hope to expand the bank of 44 NHS doctors who are currently on the books as being available to work for the hospital in their spare time. That would allow the hospital to provide private in-patient care for the first time since last July.
The scheme could end of a period of intense uncertainty for the hospital, taken over by its new bosses after the previous owners closed the original business.
Caldew Hospitals Ltd manager Val Holliday said: “At the moment, both private and NHS patients are having to leave the area for care, so we’re trying to bring work to the area so that patients will not have to travel 60 miles to Newcastle for treatment.”
Currently, the hospital employs only a dozen people, and offers ENT, gynaecology, urology, cardiology, ophthalmology, neurology, and physiotherapy. Bosses hope to expand the range of work they offer.
They also want to improve links with The Cumberland Infirmary, and do some medical NHS work for the trust that runs that hospital.
The hospital proposals go before Carlisle City Council planners at the next meeting in December. If approved, the hospital will be built in two phases, starting next year and continuing in 2011, lasting for around 12 months.
The hospital saw its work dramatically reduced as the firm which originally owned it pulled out, making around 50 people redundant.
This came after the firm abandoned a planned move to a new £6 million building on the site of the city’s Cumberland Infirmary. Most of the new jobs will be for nurses.
First published at 11:37, Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk
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Please note not all the local residents are against this project.Make it clear in the next article that some residents are for this development.It will bring much needed jobs to the city much needed revenue to the city and stability for the site.As an afterthought please make it clear that several trees will not be pulled down, according to my reading of the plans only one diseased tree will be lost regardless of the development going ahead or not.
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I think it's about time Dave Evans and JJ got back to the main subject which is the redevelopment of Caldew Hospital, because as far as staffing,consultants workloads etc are concerned they have no idea what they are talking. Quite frankly, some of their comments are becoming dangerous because other uninformed people will read them and no doubt believe them. Feel free to discuss the subject again when you know the true facts but it will be of no interest to you then, because the true facts are not "sensational".
Posted by Lily on 4 December 2009 at 11:07