MENTAL health services in Leigh are to receive a £39 million investment.

Plans to build a new centre that will provide acute adult in-patient accommodation for up to 48 patients as well as space for charities have been announced by the 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

The trust’s aim is that within 72 hours of being admitted to a mental health ward at the trust's Greenbank site, off Atherleigh Way, a patient will have been actively involved in deciding what their care will look like.

The patient will have made decisions about what recovery means to them and a care plan will have been put in place to support them to meet their recovery goals and the new building will facilitate this.

A spokesman for the trust said: “The building offers the potential for people to access mental health services in one convenient location at the heart of the Leigh East community.

“While our adult in-patient teams are working very hard at Leigh Infirmary and the care we provide at that location continues to be safe and in line with clinical guidelines, our trust board has recognised an opportunity to create an even better offering for people.

“This proposed site will allow us to move our adult in-patient services that are currently based at the infirmary to a new mental health development. It will have separate male and female accommodation, with individual en-suite facilities which we are not presently able to offer here at our current site.

“We are also proposing facilities to promote improved physical health and wellbeing for our patients and some people may attend the building for an assessment but will return to their usual place of residence.”

An application for planning permission will start in February. Construction should begin in the autumn and the building open by spring 2016.