College To Support Increasing Demand On Healthcare Industry With New Centre

Weston College plans to build a Health and Active Living Skills Centre on land adjacent to the College’s Loxton Campus site.

The plan will see £13.3 million pounds invested into the area with the creation of teaching spaces for health and social care. It will be the first facility of its kind in the region and courses taught at the site will enable young people and adults to learn from Level 1 up to degree-level – ensuring that the region is able to provide the right skills and qualifications it needs for a sustainable healthcare workforce for the future.

The centre aims to support the growth of the health and social care sector and address skills shortages within healthcare providers such as the NHS.

Extensive consultation has been undertaken with health sector employers to understand the challenges the sector faces, and how these can be addressed through an expansion of the College’s provision.

Dr Paul Phillips CBE, Principal and Chief Executive of the Weston College Group, said: “This is an important investment in the future of healthcare in the region.

“We looked at a number of options when it came to building this new centre, but the one that was most viable was to build it at our Loxton Campus, which is a stone’s throw away from Weston General Hospital.

“The development will bring together the College’s health and social care, sports therapy and active living curricula into one bespoke facility, which will benefit our students as well as the wider community.”

As well as providing qualifications to people new to the healthcare sector, the Health and Active Living Skills Centre will also work with local and regional employers to upskill and retrain their existing staff.

James Rimmer, Chief Executive of Weston Area Health Trust, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for partnership working between Weston College and Weston General Hospital.

“This demonstrates the investment we are both making to support the learning and development of students. We hope it will also help the recruitment and retention of staff as well as supporting the increased demand on healthcare locally”.