A ground-breaking ceremony at Cripps Health Centre marks the start of work to build one of the country’s largest wellness centres.

The new Cripps Health Centre will transform services for the healthcare needs of students and staff as well as those of the local community. It will offer a holistic approach to primary health and dental care, with enhanced clinical consulting rooms, minor operations suites, a patient observation bay, physiotherapy areas, dentist treatment rooms, a pharmacy and mental health suite, as well as training rooms and offices.

The new facility was made possible through a generous £9 million gift from the Cripps Foundation – the largest single gift donation from a private foundation in the University’s history. Members of the Cripps family joined Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir David Greenaway at University Park campus to mark the ground-breaking.

Robert Cripps, founding member of the Cripps Foundation, said: “We hope that this building will supply all of the requirements, not only for the student body, but the body that makes up the whole of the university and will provide the best of health support to everyone involved. It will be the best in this country just as the original one was when it was first built and it’s a delight to come back here.”

When it was built in 1969, the original Cripps Health Centre had 6,000 students and staff on its records. It now boasts a list of more than 41,000 patients – the biggest GP register in the UK.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir David Greenaway said: “This magnificent gift marks a new chapter in the history of gift-giving by the Cripps family. To have funded so many of our much-loved buildings is remarkable.

“Our University estate would not be the place we know it is today without their generosity and we are very grateful to them. The plans for the wellness centre will deliver an exemplar facility in terms of design, service provision and related research that will be unrivalled in the UK.”

Work is scheduled for completion in Autumn 2018 at which point the current health centre will be repurposed.