WORK to restore the former Radcliffe Infirmary Outpatients’ Building in Oxford has been completed.

As part of a £14.1m scheme by Oxford University and Nuffield Department of Primary Health Care Sciences, the building has been renovated for the use of primary care researchers.

An official opening ceremony is expected to take place later this year, with bosses rechristening it the "Radcliffe Primary Care Building".

The Grade II-listed structure, built in 1911, is linked with several significant advances in healthcare but has been empty since the university bought it in 2007.

It is part of the university's new Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, which also features the Mathematics Institute, the historic Radcliffe Observatory and the new Blavatnik School of Government.

Professor Richard Hobbs, part of the primary care sciences department and a part-time GP, said: "Relocating into this historic building is particularly fitting – it will put an academic commitment to better healthcare in the community within a building designed originally for the care of out-patients."

In 1941, the building was originally the site of the country’s first accident and emergency service and a section since demolished was the site of the world’s first admission of penicillin to a patient.

The building's new design was drawn-up by Niall McLaughlin Architects and still includes original features, including a wooden cold storage cupboard used for clinical laboratory samples, the wooden-panelled Chapel of Praise, and the hospital donation box.

Its stone façade has been restored and had triple-height glass windows added.

Prof Hobbs said its new use will see it become the only clinical department of the university's medical sciences division to be based in the city centre.

It will also be the first dedicated building for the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences in Oxford.

He added: "This new building will provide a melting pot for new ideas and research collaborations, as we provide the evidence for how healthcare could be better delivered both locally and globally."

The department previously occupied part of the Gibson Building on the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, and the adjacent New Radcliffe House, which it shared with the Jericho Health Centre and Oxford University Press.

Oxford Civic Society chairman Peter Thompson welcomed the revamp, which he said was "sensitive to the history of the site".

He added: "We are very pleased to see it has been refurbished and the way they have managed to adapt a historic building for new purposes is very encouraging.

"It is also another piece in the jigsaw for the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, an area of the city we continue to watch with great interest."