£32m Mental Health Facility Approved

A new £32m mental health facility has been approved for Belfast City Hospital.

This new facility will centralise all acute mental health inpatient beds for the Belfast Trust and will consist a 74-bed acute mental health unit and a six-bed psychiatric intensive care unit.

Existing vacant hospital buildings will be demolished to make way for the new development.

Some 680 construction related jobs will be generated during the build, with the potential to provide £68m of economic activity, the Belfast Trust said.

Environment Minister Mark H Durkan said: "For the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust this development will create one centre that will rationalise and modernise the facilities in which acute inpatient mental health services are provided. It is welcome that this decision, which helps to provide a much needed health facility, has been turned around quickly."

Health Minister Edwin Poots said: "This new state of the art facility, when complete, will make a real and lasting difference to the lives of many patients and families across Northern Ireland.

"One in four people in Northern Ireland will experience some form of mental ill-health in their lives and more needs to be done to tackle the issue. This new facility will help provide much more support, better services and treatment. Services that are more effective and more humane; treatments that help them avoid chronic disability and premature death; and support that gives them a life that is healthier and richer – a life lived with dignity."

(IT/MH)