Work starts on transforming pub into NHS facility

Work to turn an abandoned pub into a modern healthcare facility has started.

Ground was broken at the Inkerman Pub site on Norwich Road, Ipswich, on Tuesday, four years after it pulled its final pints for punters in 2022.

Over the next nine months, the venue will be extended and bolted to the neighbouring Cardinal Medical Practice, creating more clinical, group and ancillary rooms and waiting areas.

Led by the surgery, with support from the NHS Norfolk and Suffolk Integrated Care Board (ICB), it is hoped the development will improve waiting times.

Ed Garratt, chief executive of the ICB, said seeing the construction of the new space finally begin was a "very, very special" moment and "so exciting for the town".

"It's a historic site full of heritage and will be a site where we provide better care and better conditions for the staff, so it's a kind of win-win for everyone," he said.

"I think this is the way forward for Suffolk - renovating, restoring and repurposing existing buildings, it is more economical than building a new site."

Cardinal Medical Practice is home to about 10 clinical rooms, but this is set to increase under the plans.

The extension would also create 12 new parking spaces and 327 sq m of additional floorspace for the practice, which currently has 27,307 patients on its books.

Emily Marsh, estate development manager at NHS Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board, said the expansion felt like "the right fit" for the practice.

"This is the start of a really exciting way forward," she said.

"Not just a new building, but a new way of working, and a new opportunity for the community to get involved – it's so exciting that we're finally here.

"Who would've thought that a pub would be a perfect place for clinical, but it is."

The work at the pub came after plans for a so-called "super surgery" at the former Tooks Bakery site, costing £7.75m, were axed.

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