Late bid to include memorial garden at Mansfield's new 'one-stop-shop' health centre
A last-minute bid is being made to include a memorial garden within Mansfield’s new ‘one-stop shop’ for health tests, scans, screenings and x-rays.
A purpose-built Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) is being created on the Stockwell Gate site of Mansfield Community Hospital and should be open by the end of this year or early 2026.
Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which is overseeing the project, says the centre will be “a game-changer for patients, reducing referral times and enhancing care by bringing state-of-the-art diagnostics together in one location”.
Once completed, the CDC will offer a range of vital diagnostic services, including blood testing, ultrasound, endoscopy, gynaecology treatment, CT and MRI scanning, and consultation rooms.
Now the trust is hoping to make a late addition to the facilities at the centre after submitting a planning application to Mansfield District Council.
It hopes to construct a memorial garden at the front of the building, replacing cycle parking stands, which would be relocated elsewhere.
The application states: “The memorial garden would seek to provide a calm and contemplative space for staff, patients and visitors.
"It would incorporate additional planting, places to sit and talk, and a focal point to commemorate, celebrate and remember.”
Details of the scheme have been drawn up the trust’s agents for the whole project, CPMG Architects, of Nottingham.
The council’s planning officers are currently considering the proposal and have set a deadline date of Thursday, November 27 for a decision or recommendation.
The new centre represents phase two of a CDC strategy in Nottinghamshire, for which £24.2 million of funding was allocated over three years.
CDCs have been springing up all over the country since the Covid-19 pandemic. The NHS feels it badly needs separate, dedicated centres to carry out certain tests and services.
The Mansfield one will be open from 7 am to 8 pm every day and will employ about 300 staff, half full-time and half part-time.
The aim is to deliver an extra 130,000 extra diagnostic tests and scans each year, making them more readily available and reducing the need for patients to travel to mainstream hospitals.
The centre will also include a permanent display of images and information, recording the long history of the site, which opened as the town’s Union Workhouse in 1837 and evolved into Victoria Hospital.