Speech and language therapy jobs are set to be created when a new brain care centre opens in Birmingham next month.

The treatment centre, on the site of a disused nursing home will offer vital care to patients from the Midlands. It is thought the opening of the centre will create up to 75 jobs, once the £3.5 million conversion is complete.

Hunters Moor Neurorehabilitation plan to create nine specialist centres around the UK, with the first being in Birmingham. The company have spent the last three months finishing the first phase of the multi-million pound renovation of the former nursing home on Cateswell Road in Hall Green.

The Olive Carter Unit which will use Hunters Moor's internationally-acclaimed practises for treating people with brain injuries, is due to open next month and the Janet Barnes Unit is expected to follow, opening later this year.

Patients at the 35 bed facility will receive physical rehabilitation treatment after suffering brain and spinal injuries. MS and stroke victims, as well as those suffering from Parkinson's disease will also be treated at the centre.

At present, those in the Midlands suffering from brain injuries or degenerative diseases are forced to travel as far as London for to find centres capable of giving them the rehabilitation treatment they need. Unlike any other centre in the UK, the Olive Carter Unit will offer both behavioural and physical treatment in the same place.

Medical director Professor Mike Barnes told the Birmingham Mail: "Our aim is to open nine centres around the UK in the next few years.

"We chose the West Midlands first as there are very good hospital and acute rehab facilities but few longer term 'slow stream' rehab facilities given the population of the region."