A turf turning ceremony, led by the Lord Mayor of Canterbury, Cllr Ian Thomas, and Canterbury MP Julian Brazier, was held on site at the hospital to mark the start of the building work which will take 14 months to complete.

The event was also attended by a local mental health service user and carer.

The new inpatient accommodation, which has been designed in conjunction with service users and carers, will include en suite rooms and will improve the quality of care, patient access and experience, as well as service efficiency and staff interaction.

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This building is the final piece in the jigsaw for the long-held plan to centralise all adult mental health inpatient care for those in east Kent and Canterbury. Once the unit is complete, two wards currently based in the Arundel Unit in Ashford will transfer to the new facility.

The new single-storey building will comprise two 18-bed wards and has been designed to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating and will blend in with and complement the existing ecology on the hospital site.

Kier Southern Director, Peter Searle, said: "This project has been developed taking on board the latest best practice within mental health delivery and looks to set new high standards for the excellent service delivery that is already currently being provided by the trust."

(CD/BMcC)