Former council offices in Dorchester will be temporarily used as an NHS clinic, one of the first in the country.

South Walks House is set to be a 'rapid access clinic', as part of a county-wide effort to tackle NHS waiting lists.

The 'Outpatient Assessment Centre @ Dorset Health Village' will operate out of the ground floor of the former council offices for six months, opening in the next few weeks.

The initiative is being led by Dorset County Hospital in partnership with NHS Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), Dorset HealthCare, LiveWell Dorset and Active Dorset and will bring together a range of outpatient services under one roof.

Patients will be invited to attend orthopaedic, musculoskeletal and physiotherapy appointments at the centre, and will be able to access health and wellbeing information and advice.

There will also be a dedicated space for clinicians to conduct virtual appointments with patients through video and telephone calls.

Councillor Tony Ferrari, portfolio holder for economic growth, assets and property at Dorset Council, said: "We are proud to be working in partnership with the NHS by providing the council-owned South Walks House building to deliver health services for the next few months.

"It's so important that we work together across the public sector to provide good services and good value to residents. This arrangement with Dorset County Hospital will help to reduce patient waiting lists, and makes good use of a vacant building while we finalise our longer-term plans."

The Dorchester centre is part of Dorset's wider 'Think Big' initiative to help reduce waiting lists. This is one of the first schemes of its kind to get up and running in the country.

Nick Johnson, deputy chief executive at Dorset County Hospital, said: "We are delighted to be working with Dorset Council and our health partners to open this new facility and make such good use of an existing public building.

"This will allow us to see and assess many more patients than is possible in our existing clinics and make significant progress in tackling waiting list backlogs caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

"If this initiative proves successful, we would be very keen to continue to run clinics in a town centre location for the convenience of our patients, as well as for the benefit of local businesses by increasing footfall in the high street."

The centre will be fully staffed by local healthcare teams, but they would like to recruit a team of volunteers to support and guide patients visiting the centre as it's a new, unfamiliar facility.

Anyone who would like to volunteer is asked to contact Volunteer Centre Dorset on [email protected] or call 01305 269214. They would particularly like to hear from anyone who has previously volunteered in a hospital or vaccination centre, or has event marshalling experience.

Don't forget to sign up to our newsletter below!

You can submit your own news straight to Dorchester Nub News by using the 'Nub It' button on our home page. This can also be done for events on our What's On page and businesses, groups and organisations on our Local Listings page , also by using the 'Nub It' button.

Please like and follow our online newspaper on your favourite social media channel. You can find us @DorchesterNubNews on Facebook and @DorchesterNub Twitter.