A NEW multi-million pound scheme, aimed at reforming and modernising the borough's NHS service, is due to "lift" off the ground in the coming months.

The Lift (Local Improvement Finance Trust) project involves a 10-year, £13.5 million plan to revolutionise primary and community care and will be a joint venture between the government's Department of Health, the local health care community and the private sector.

Locally it means new, better quality premises for a vast number of GP's surgeries, offering a more accessible and welcoming environment for patients as well as improved working conditions and facilities for doctors.

Specific projects in six different areas have been identified for the first phase of the scheme, including proposals for Atherton and Golborne.

In Atherton four practices, Dr Atrey, Dr Sahni, Dr Sharma and Ghosh and Dr Vasanth and Partner, will move to new £3 million premises at the site of St George's Infants School in Nelson Street. The one-stop-shop will also house a pharmacy and the community and child facilities from the existing clinic, there is also interest from local dental practitioners.

Along with Lower Ince and Worsley Mesnes, building work will begin on the Atherton development next January and is expected to be completed by the end of 2004.

Patients, 85 per cent of whom live within a mile and a quarter of the new one acre site, have been informed of the plans and the response has been positive.

The Golborne project involves the relocation of three practices, Dr Anis, Dr Pal and Dr Shabazi, to one central site at Enterprise Industrial Park in Golborne town centre, where it is hoped there will be space for an Older Persons Community Mental Health Team.

Unacceptable

Decisions about which practices needed work were based on the results of a recent Estates Audit, which looked at the physical condition, statutory compliance and quality of existing premises. In each of the eight categories around 50 per cent of buildings were considered unacceptable.

Jane Chandler, NHS Lift project director said: "The results of the audit revealed a dramatic decline in the condition and quality of clinics and health centres in the borough. The sooner we can do something about it the happier I shall be. Patients deserve to be seen in a decent place."

Grasmere Street Health Centre in Leigh, Market Street in Hindley and Hindley Health Centre are all earmarked for the second phase of the scheme, due to begin planning towards the end of the year.

Leigh MP Andy Burnham welcomed the plans: "This project will enhance the service the people of Golborne and Atherton receive from their GPs. It will complement the new community health clinics, create capacity for more practices and bring together a range of health facilities. I hope they will become a real resource at the heart of our communities.

"These GP practices urgently need investment. I and the other borough MPs have been making the case for some time that the borough deserves a decent slice of the billions of pounds being invested into our NHS by the Labour Government.

"The local Primary Care Trust will receive an extra £86 million over the next three years to invest in our health service. This is on top of an extra £17 million Wigan Council will receive in 2003. We have been campaigning long and hard for this money and have won through in the end."