MORE than 100 flats for NHS staff will be built across two Oxford hospital sites, as the health trust looks to update its accommodation for staff.

Oxford City Council’s east area planning committee approved plans for 125 new flats at the John Radcliffe Hospital site and 19 flats at Churchill Hospital at its meeting on Wednesday.

There are currently 91 flats in four blocks at the Ivy Lane area of the JR site, which will be knocked down to make way for six new accommodation blocks, some of which are five-storeys tall.

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The accommodation is arranged in a different layout to the current flat blocks, with some of the buildings set around tree-lined courtyards.

On the Churchill Hospital site, a vacant building on Churchill Drive will be demolished to make way for the 19 flats.

Oxford Mail:

The vacant building at the Churchill Hospital site which will be replaced by new accommodation. Picture: Oxford City Council.

Andrew Carter, director of nursing for workforce at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said the buildings would help to recruit and retain staff.

Mr Carter said: “Nationally we are facing what is perhaps the biggest workforce challenge the NHS has seen, certainly the biggest I have ever seen in my 30 year career.”

Oxford Mail:

A design drawing of the new flats at Churchill Drive. Picture: Oxford City Council.

He added: “Being able to offer affordable accommodation is a key part of both our recruitment and retention programmes.”

The new blocks of flats will be run by housing company A2Dominion, on land owned by the hospital trust.

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There are plans to restrict rent rates to a level which is affordable for nursing staff, but a report to the committee acknowledged that rent rates in some of the studio flats would go above the affordable rate of 35 per cent of an average monthly salary.