LEDBURY'S Community Health and Care Centre is celebrating fifteen years of delivering care in the community this April.

The Shaw healthcare-run centre, in Market Street, marked the occasion recently with an afternoon tea party and a visit from local VIPs, who also presented a plaque.

Distinguished visitors on the day included Ledbury's mayor, Cllr Debbie Baker; the chairman of Hereford County Council, Cllr Brian Wilcox; North Herefordshire MP, Bill Wiggin, and the chairman of Shaw healthcare, Alun Thomas.

Built in 2002 on Market Street, on the site of Ledbury's old cattle market, the centre is run in partnership with Herefordshire Primary Care NHS Trust and St Katherine’s Surgery.

The centre is comprised of a number of different elements including: the Ledbury NHS Community Hospital, Ledbury Nursing Home, Acquired Brain Injury and Physical Disability Unit,and several other health and community services such as St Katherine’s GP surgery, a registered care home, NHS dentist, pharmacy, social services community unit, the Market Café and the Tots to Teens centre.

Shaw healthcare’s relationship and sales manager, Jane Harris said: “We’re so proud of how far the centre has come – fifteen years on from our opening and we really are at the heart of the community. Ledbury Community and Health Care Centre provides ongoing medical care and rehabilitation to help people in their recovery, when they have had treatment at hospital but are not well enough to go home.

The centre was purpose built by Shaw healthcare to replace Ledbury’s nineteenth century Community Hospital, off the Homend, which could no longer meet the town’s needs, because it was considered too too small and not health and safety compliant.