A new multi-million pound health centre in Tunstall is to introduce new services and support for patients in Suffolk.

The Sentinel, the local paper for Staffordshire and South Cheshire, reports that the city's primary care trust has revived plans for the health centre after it was downsized and deprioritised two years ago.

The new building will offer new opportunities for those working in occupational therapy jobs. As well as relocating GP practices from the town, the health centre will offer blood testing, paeditriatic physiotherapy and podiatry services to the public.

It will also create a central location for those working in speech and language therapy jobs, in order to better support patients such as stroke victims who have impaired communication abilities. Dietitian jobs will also be in place at the new centre as part of the facilities promotion of preventative lifestyles and improving recovery/relapse rates.

Tunstall Councillor and City Health Scrutiny committee member Lee Wagner told The Sentinel that the announcement was "great new for Tunstall" and that it was "another piece in the jigsaw of better healthcare premises for the city as a whole".

Sandra Jones, the project manager for the facility, said that the development was part of the PCT programme for modernising health care premises in Stoke-On-Trent. This aims to renovate thedilapidated buildings where many surgeries are currently located and to shift outpatient appointments away from the Hartshill 'super hospital'.

The two-story facility will feature parking for 241 cars as well as landscaped grounds and ready pedestrian and cycle access.