On Monday 14th May 2007 Craig Nevis Surgery moved to the New Fort William Health Centre! Glen Mor (previously High Street Practice) followed on Monday 21st May and Tweeddale on 28th May. All the other services including District Nursing, Health Visiting, Chiropody, Dentistry, Speech and Language, Learning Disabilities, Physio and Occupational Therapy, Dieticians, Mental and Child health moved in over the following next week or so.
The phone numbers are the same and access should be much easier for most with the local buses stopping there, parking nearby, and dropping off places for Community Cars. It will now be up to the professionals to maximise the benefits of all services being under one roof and to deliver, whenever possible, the one stop shop concept for patients visiting. It is essential that there is a Pharmacy on site to allow this and it is hoped that an appeal will be successful so that a Pharmacy will open within the new centre within the next few months .
The Health Centre is the culmination of a vast amount of local effort over the last eight years, when the original "Peat Practice" concept on the Blar Mhor with the Belford was proposed, but faltered whilst other sites were fully investigated. A total of seven sites were assessed. The only possible alternative - the site on An Aird at the shinty car park/Motorway Cars -failed when it became clear that the site was far too small for the proposed building. The Blar Mor Site was chosen because it is closer to the centre of the community and was the only site big enough for the three GP practices and the community health facilities.
It will allow for a new Belford Hospital to move there in years to come and the building will have plenty of room and has been designed for future expansion. The local GPs instigated the project and after engaging NHS Highland employed Andy Bruce an Architect from Inverness as their advisor and then Apollo PMP as developers, with John Dryburgh and Cammy Halliday leading the team. Alistair Wilson and Tom Slavin of the Health Board have played a major role in setting up the Community Wing and ensuring funding. Robertsons are the Contractors and we have been pleased to see so many local tradesmen employed on the building, which has been very well overseen by Johnny Murphy as Clerk of Works. Ali Berardelli has been in charge of an extensive and ambitious local art project to give the building a therapeutic atmosphere and we sincerely hope that some folk will be able to feel better even by walking through the door. No more inadequate parking, cramped surgeries and broken lifts!! Instead as you enter the site you will pass the entrance sign which incorporates the Health Centre Logo - a flow of hill outlines, waves and includes the three Kennedy Cairns, designed by John Sutherland.
As you enter through the automatic doors you will be walking alongside church pews kindly donated by the MacIntosh Church and into the central foyer where an aluminium sculpture, funded by Alcan and 2007, hangs from the central void. Pictures by local artists, and stained glass works set off the four large waiting areas and have been funded by the developer, the G.Ps and the Highland 2007 fund. Each of the three Practices has its own separate wing and we will continue to work as individual surgeries whilst the Community Wing contains large areas especially for Community Dentistry, Children's and Mental Health Services.
There will be an Open Day on Saturday 16th June of which more later! So we are half way there - we now have the means to deliver the best Health Service Lochaber has had in our splendid new building - and now we must get on and do it!
