South Downs Health & Care (SDHC), GP Federation, and charity Wave Active were successful with their bid to purchase the sports campus in 2024 after Brighton University decided to vacate its Eastbourne site.

The facilities include a swimming pool, large sports hall, gyms, fitness suites, and 100-seat cafeteria, which is being converted into the new base for SDHC and an assessment and treatment centre comprising GP consulting rooms, treatment areas and reception.

SDHC is a social enterprise providing NHS healthcare services and private appointments. Contracted by the NHS to deliver out-of-hours GP consultations, SDHC currently operates in Hampden Park, typically with four GPs on duty during weekends. Once fully operational at Hillbrow, SDHC hopes to initially provide 224 urgent NHS appointments each week along with a new GP training hub, and in so doing, become the first location in the UK other than GP practices and hospitals to deliver GP training at scale.

Dr Nick Harvey, GP and chief executive at South Downs Health and Care, GP Federation, said: ‘This is undoubtedly a ground-breaking moment in the delivery of healthcare and wellbeing services in the community. In what we believe is a first for the UK, we are integrating our services, including urgent treatment with physical activity-focused health and wellbeing provision, all within a modern multi-functional complex.

‘Our partnership with Wave Active brings the government's hospital to community agenda to life, where prevention and treatment are delivered within a neighbourhood health centre, as well as training the next generation of GPs.'

Wave Active is a charity and social enterprise that operates sports and leisure centres on behalf of Lewes District Council and Eastbourne Borough Council. Wave has increasingly been supporting patients referred by local GP practices and Eastbourne District General Hospital.                        

Duncan Kerr, chief executive of Wave Active, said: ‘Our partnership with SDHC is a huge step forward and the fulfilment of a vision that we share for enabling fully integrated healthcare and wellbeing services in the heart of our community.

‘To know that we will soon be running our extensive programme of fitness and wellbeing classes at Hillbrow, alongside GPs training and treating patients in the new consulting rooms, is very exciting and presents a fantastic opportunity to make a real difference to health outcomes for Eastbourne residents.'

From 22 April, and in addition to the urgent appointments at Hillbrow Health & Wellbeing, visitors will have access to vaccinations, phlebotomy and weight loss clinics, memory assessment services, and physiotherapy. Later in the year, it hopes to add an NHS consultant ENT clinic to reduce waiting times, and beyond that introduce imaging facilities, specialised outpatient clinics, and NHS Musculo-skeletal clinics.

Health and care partners across Sussex have a five-year strategy – Improving Lives Together – which sets out a clear ambition to improve health services and the care people receive when they need help, but also to prevent ill-health in the first place.

James Ramsay, chief medical officer at NHS Sussex, said: 'People across Eastbourne are going to benefit from this partnership, bringing the NHS and wellbeing together under one roof, close to where people live and making it as easy as possible to access support.

'Our ambition for health and care, aligned to the Government's plan, is for more care to be offered within our communities, joined up across health and care, and this is a brilliant example of how this will work – focused on the needs of the local population.'