A football club in Scotland is to set up a health centre within its stadium to provide GP and community nursing services.
The Gamechanger project, believed to be the one of the first of its kind developed with a football club – is a public social partnership between Hibernian Football Club, Hibernian Community Foundation and NHS Lothian.
The status and standing of the club in the community will attract people to the centre, and health inequalities will be tackled, the club argues.
It will bring ‘physical and mental health benefits, create and deliver training and employability programmes, and work to improve the lives of more vulnerable people in our communities.’
Hibernian chief executive Leeann Dempster said: ‘Football helps gain access to hard-to-reach audiences, it creates high levels of awareness, it touches lives in a way that very few other things in Scotland can match. Our partners are all very excited at the magic dust that football can sprinkle on issues that really need our attention.’
Other initiatives in the pipeline as part of the development include a family support centre, a ‘learning and innovation zone’ and a ‘healthy growing zone.’
