A Bradford health centre which serves the district’s most vulnerable people will be celebrating its tenth anniversary on Wednesday.
Healthcare professionals, charities and partner organisations who work with Bevan House Primary Care Centre, in Sunbridge Road, will be on the guestlist at a celebration at Heaton Mount Conference Centre in Emm Lane, Bradford, from noon.
The GP support service helps people who find it difficult to access mainstream services, mainly homeless people, those in temporary or unstable accommodation, asylum seekers and refugees.
Baroness Thornton of Manningham, who is Shadow Spokeswoman on Equality Issues, will speak at the event, which will be compered by broadcaster and film-maker John Thirlwell.
The centre became a social enterprise, Bevan Healthcare CIC, in 2011 as part of a new wave of healthcare providers who broke away from NHS management to operate as independent not-for-profit organisations.
There are now plans to move into a larger city centre premises to cope with increasing patient numbers and expand its services by launching a number of new projects.
In September, Bevan won funding from the Social Enterprise Investment Fund to buy and redevelop a Grade II listed former solicitor's building in Piccadilly.
Bevan Healthcare Board chairman Jon Rymer said: “We are proud to be celebrating a decade of providing the best possible health care services to vulnerable people in our society who need it most, yet often find it most difficult to find help.
“We have been able to take advantage of the many opportunities open to social enterprises, to develop partnerships, work flexibly across professional boundaries and win extra funding and investment, all for the benefit of the people we serve.
“The new centre will allow us to grow and improve facilities even more for our current and future patients.”
Among services the centre already provides is a clinic for prostitutes and holistic support for women and children who have recently got refugee status or have been victims of torture or violence.
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