THE TEMPORARY replacement for Bootham Park hospital will open in York by the end of summer, health bosses have announced.

Peppermill Court off Huntington Road is being refurbished as a new adult mental health hospital for the city, since Bootham Park’s shock closure last September.

Now health bosses say that although work has been delayed slightly, the hospital should reopen at the end of August.

Ruth Hill, director of operations for York and Selby at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV), said: “Everyone involved in developing Peppermill has worked extremely hard and to a very tight timetable to help us bring adult inpatient beds back to York as quickly as possible."

She added: “The refurbishment has taken a few weeks longer than originally planned but the work is near completion and I’m really pleased that very soon people who need to spend time in hospital will be admitted locally.

“In the meantime we will continue to do all we can to support service users and their families who are travelling to hospitals outside of York.”

Since Bootham Park Hospital was effectively closed by inspectors, adults from York have had to go to hospitals outside the city, mainly Roseberry Park in Middlesbrough, for mental health treatment.

The new facility at Peppermill Court will have a 24-bed assessment and treatment unit will have a male and female ward, each with 12 single bedrooms.

TEWV took over the provision mental health and learning disability servies for the Vale of York just after Bootham Park closed, and has since reinstated outpatient services and the “place of safety” suite at the city centre site.

It is also working on plans for a new mental health hospital, to open in 2019, and is considering different sites around the city - including Bootham Park’s existing plot, Lime Trees in Shipton Road, The Retreat site off Heslington Road, Land near Clifton Park Hospital in Rawcliffe, and the former Lowfield School site.

A formal public consultation on the proposals for the new hospital is expected to start in early autumn.

Peppermill Court was an assessment unit for male dementia patients, but contractors started work at the end of January on a £1 million project to convert it into a mental health hospital for adults.