AN £11.5m scheme to create a purpose-built super surgery on the site of the former Radcliffe Infirmary Hospital has been unveiled.

Oxford University is to fund the new health care facility in the city centre, which will allow three cramped Oxford GP practices to be relocated in modern premises.

The new super surgery will form the third phase of the scheme to create a new university campus, while ensuring a health link to the site.

The university agreed to build a Jericho Health Centre, facing onto Walton Street, after buying the vast site from the NHS in 2003.

Three surgeries and up to 12 GPs will move into the ground floor of the new building. The surgeries – Dr Bogdanor and Partners, Dr Chivers and Partners and Dr Kearley and Partners – are all currently based in the existing Jericho Health Centre in Walton Street.

In their new premises, the surgeries will be supported by extra health services including training, education, visiting consultant services and approved complementary health services. Nursing services will be accommodated on the ground floor.

The two floors above the health centre will accommodate the university’s Department of Public Health Care, relocated from the Rosemary Rue Building in the Old Road Campus, along with new Oxford University Press offices.

Oxford University said that the new flat-roofed health centre would be “spacious, modern and easy to reach”.

Dr Stephen Goss, pro-vice-chancellor (Personnel and Equality), who is overseeing the project for the university, said: “We shall create a new health centre offering more space and improved facilities which will meet the latest NHS standards.”

The new building, leased to the primary health trust, will be situated opposite Cardigan Street and Jericho Street.

A planning application will be submitted shortly, with building work expected to be completed around Easter 2012.

Helen Salisbury, a GP at Kearley and Partners, said: “We are delighted to be moving. Our current premises are very cramped and not fit for purpose. We look forward to welcoming patients to a 21st Century building.”

Dr Andy Chivers said: “We are delighted that the new building is going ahead. It has been a long process to get to this point. The great thing for us will be to have space to provide proper health care in modern surroundings. We hope to be able to expand the range of services we provide, such as physiotherapy.”

When the RI was sold, residents had hoped that some hospital services would be retained at a health facility on the site. But Dr Chivers said providing X-ray and ultra-sound facilities so close to the JR had not been possible.

Jenny Mann, secretary of the Jericho Community Association, said: “We are pleased that the doctors are moving into better premises. But we originally thought the doctors would be getting some of the facilities that were on the RI site, so people would not have to be sent to the JR.”