New East Tamworth medical centre attracting new doctors to town

The one-stop medical shop opened early this year, and the developers, Hampton Property Group, couldn't be more pleased.

Developer Derek Miller said it had been almost three years since he stood in the council car park across the road and look at the vacant block of land

"The end result is amazing," he said.

"It has a range of benefits. It provides a stand of health care that's better than anything that's been here to date.

"The traditional converted weatherboard cottage or shopping centre is out of date. Patients expect far more."

Mr Miller said the state-of-the-art building had a GP along with a range of specialist, such as dietetics, psychology, pathology and radiology.

A pharmacy will opening shortly and there is also a childcare.

"This also acts as a recruitment tool," he said.

"It attracts doctors and other healthcare professionals to the region.

"The feedback we've had is that when visiting GPs or specialist visit the centre, their interest in moving here greatly improves."

GP and owner of North West Health Ian Kamerman said the building was already starting to attract more health professionals.

"There's been a lot of interest and we've already had new doctors join us," he said.

"We've been looking at trying to reverse the rural shortage of doctors and other health professionals, this whole practise has been set up as a training practise.

"So far we've had an excellent record of recruiting and retaining doctors in the region."

His clinic has 10 consulting rooms, along with a few telly-conference rooms, so people can talk to specialists from Sydney or Newcastle.

Formline Group managing director Stephen McDonald said the build and fit out took about 16 months.

"There were over 50 companies that worked on the project at a site level, and a further 75 companies in the supply chain," he said.

"So that works out to be about 100,000 man hours that went in to building this structure."

The building is "80 per cent full", and still has three vacancies.