A huge health centre has opened for business - as an example of the kind of successful construction project that is likely to be the 'way ahead' in the building industry.

The centre has been developed under the Government's primacy care strategy by Fermoy man Fergus Hoban, a trained pharmacist and Chairman of Carr Communications, who is in partnership with property developer John Bowen.

The developers of the new Blackrock Hall Primacy Care Centre off the Skehard Road in Mahon said the new centre, which boasts hotel-like facilities, said it will deliver a significantly better health experience for patients and for the community.

Mr Hoban said Blackrock Hall "is not a building, but a process" which will provide people with an opportunity to avail of earlier intervention and management of rehabilitation in the community.

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"We really want this centre to be the beating heart of the local community," he said.

"Our vision is for this centre to belong to the community and be managed by people already living and working in the community who will know the majority of patients by name. This is the future of primary care."

Touchstone opened its first primary care clinic in Mulhuddart, Co Dublin in 2004 and Mr Hoban, who has ploughed up to €12m into Blackrock Hall, plans to develop more primary care centres in Cork over the coming years.

Nine doctors from three established GP practices in the Mahon, Blackrock and Ballintemple suburbs will relocate to new suites in the facility. They have an estimated 29,000 patients on their books – 12% of all GP patients in the metropolitan Cork area.

The doctors have purchased their own facilities and are not employed by Touchstone.

Patients will be welcomed at a reception desk and escorted into a plush communal waiting area, decorated with soothing colours and complete with plasma TVs, some at children's eye-level.

They will then be called through double doors to their respective GPs.

The attention to detail means each consultation room has been designed to make patients feel comfortable, and more inclined to discuss at their ease with their GP.

The range of Health Service Executive services on a separate floor are due to come on stream in May including community nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy as well as mental health services and other health and social care practitioners on a visiting basis.

(BMcC/GK)