Eden community celebrates new health centre

Eden Fitton Hill is celebrating an extraordinary victory in their community with the awarding of a contract to provide a new GP practice for local people in Fitton Hill.

Hope Citadel, a social enterprise company set up by local people and members of the Eden team, won the contract, fighting off competition from large companies and public providers because of their local knowledge and passion for the local people.

Laura Neilson from the Eden Fitton Hill team explains:

‘For the 6,000 people here, healthcare provision has historically been quite poor. When the contract came up, the likelihood was that it was going to go to a multinational health company who would try and turn a profit out of it.

‘We thought we could do a better job for the local people, offering care more holistically, much more designed for them. And rather than make profit out of it we would invest the proceeds back into the community.

‘For me, it was a social justice issue.’

The Hope Citadel team’s goal is to provide excellent healthcare with a Christian ethos, bringing an emphasis on caring for the whole person and integrating many of the same kinds of activities that have been running as part of Eden for over five years.

The application process was intense with large volumes of application data being required over a short period of time. The team found support from the local community.

‘It was amazing to see how people supported it,’ says Laura. ‘Local people were writing letters of support and the local housing officer, councillor and police inspector all got behind the bid.’

The team had to face an eleventh hour funding crisis when their bank withdrew the offer of a loan leaving them just 24 hours to find £100,000 of funding:

‘We phoned and prayed. One of the guys on Eden pledged all his savings.’

Laura believes the fact that the Eden team has been in place for five years strengthened the bid to Oldham Primary Care Trust:

‘Being people who actually live in the community made a huge difference in our application. Because we know the area so well and know the people, we know the subtleties of some the problems. It’s really easy to label this area as poor, but when you’re here you know why. You know the families involved, the job situations, the real issues.’

‘We wouldn’t have been able to write the applications with any authority unless we’d been living here on Eden for all these years.’

The Fitton Hill health centre is just one of three contracts Hope Citadel has won in the local area. Two others, in Hollinwood and Middleton, are also in development.

The Fitton Hill centre opens on July 1, initially in a temporary building on Deanshut Rd (pictured). This will serve the community for the next few years until a permanent facility is built as part of the area’s New Deal plans.

An open afternoon is scheduled for anyone interested in viewing the new facility and meeting the team on June 24.

More information, is available on the Hope Citadel website, www.hopecitadel.org, including job vacancies for the new centres.