The new Harold Moody Health Centre has opened on Southwark’s Aylesbury Estate, rehoming two local GP practices, and providing a brand-new neighbourhood base for delivery of community health services.
The welcomed community resource is part of a wider renewal of the Aylesbury Estate and ensures that residents have access to vital NHS provision on their doorstep.
The building also houses community health services from Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundaton Trust (GSTT), including speech and language therapy, health visiting, breastfeeding and midwives. The Aylesbury neighbourhood nursing team is also based at the Harold Moody Health Centre.
Cllr Evelyn Akoto, Cabinet Member for Health & Wellbeing said:
“It’s vital that people have provision in their local communities to support health and wellbeing – the Harold Moody Health Centre is a vital new facility at the heart of the Aylesbury Estate helping to ensure residents have that support at hand. We’re really pleased to have worked closely with the NHS to bring this care to people’s doorsteps.
“This is part of a wider major renewal of the Aylesbury Estate being carried out by Southwark – we’re replacing poor quality and unsafe housing with new homes and community facilities such as this one.
“The renewal is taking place in phases over many years and has provided 581 new homes, 150 homes for social rent, and 45 shared ownership homes. As well as the new health centre there is a brand new community centre, play spaces, and a new library, transforming the area and providing a huge boost to the local community.”
The centre is a key building on what is known as Plot 18, which itself is a key element of the wider Aylesbury Area Redevelopment area - a £70 million redevelopment project delivered in partnership with Notting Hill Genesis, of which £39m community infrastructure has been funded by the council.
The phase has delivered a new mixed-use development that includes the health centre, the new library, a new public square, 122 high quality new homes and commercial units.
Dr Kenny Chan, GP Partner from Nexus Health Group, said:
“We’ve watched the build of Harold Moody Health Centre from our former premises at the Aylesbury Medical Centre next door and are pleased to now be operating from the site.
“We’d like to thank to NHS South East London premises team for all their help and support in the lead up to our move. We are delighted that we have a state-of-the-art building that is available to all our patients across north Southwark.”
The centre was named after Dr. Harold Moody following a public vote. Dr. Moody came from Jamaica in 1904 to study medicine at King’s College, London. Encountering racial prejudice, he was unable to gain work as a doctor and set up his own GP practice in Peckham in 1913. Moody founded the League of Coloured Peoples in 1931, which challenged racial discrimination and fought for equality. He campaigned for employment rights for Black seamen, fair pay for Trinidadian oil workers, and the lifting of the colour bar in the British Armed Forces that prevented the appointment of Black officers. Moody’s campaigning work influenced the Race Relations Act 1965, the UK’s first law against discrimination on the grounds of colour, race, ethnicity or national origins.
The Harold Moody Health Centre is located at 60 Thurlow Street, London SE17 2GB.
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