The Marches Centre of Excellence for Health and Social Care

The Marches Centre of Excellence for Health and Social Care is an excellent example of the way the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership has delivered vital services to build a prosperous future for the region.

The LEP provided £3.5million of Local Growth Fund investment to the £5million project to create a state-of-the-art medical and social care training centre with the University of Wolverhampton at its Priorslee campus in Telford.

The LEP did so because it recognised the importance of this project in delivering a huge range of strategic benefits for our region.

The centre – which was officially opened in May – uses cutting edge technology, such as immersive reality, to revolutionise the way in which learning is delivered and has developed new courses and content to meet market and sector demands.

It will result in 72 new jobs, the development of two new apprenticeship programmes, 174 new apprentices and enrolment of over 1,000 students in the first four years.

The centre makes good on the LEP’s commitment to providing first-class training and learning opportunities in this crucial sector for the whole region. It will help retain more young talent in this region by giving them the skills and experience they need to meet their own career ambitions and to create more high-value jobs and opportunities for years to come.

It also delivers on the LEP’s aim of embracing the latest technologies and establishing the Marches as a national leader in the adoption of digital and advanced training methods whilst also demonstrating the success of the partnership working model.

The LEP was created to bring public and private sector organisations together to work for the good of the wider region – something the new centre of excellence clearly achieves.