Brand new health facilities will be built in four areas of Wolverhampton which suffer from a shortage of doctors, the Express & Star can reveal today.

The three surgeries and a GP-led health centre will be created in the wards of Ettingshall, Bilston, Graiseley and Bushbury South and Low Hill. Health chiefs used criteria including how many GPs the areas already have and the number of elderly people, children and minority groups there to decide where in Wolverhampton the facilities should go.

A consultation exercise will now be carried out by the primary care trust to agree where exactly the new health centres will be developed.

The premises required for the health facilities need to be ready by April of next year and both long-term and short term plans are being investigated.

In the long-term it is proposed the centres could operate from developments which are already under way in the city such as the Bilston Urban Village.

One of the options being considered for the siting of the GP-led health centre is Showell Park in Low Hill, which has already been earmarked for a mini-hospital development. Penn Fields Health Centre is also being considered.

Jon Crockett, chief executive of the PCT, today welcomed the news, saying: “In Wolverhampton there are a significant number of GPs who are in support of these developments. It is a good thing for the city.”

The new facilities will be in addition to a £90 million investment in 12 new health developments in the region under the national LIFT project, for which PCTs have to place contracts by April 2009 to build the new premises.

The LIFT initiative funded the £3 million Phoenix Centre in Parkfields, which offers minor surgery, GP and dental services, therapies and footcare.

Last month the Express & Star reported fears traditional GP surgeries are under threat from Government plans to create polyclinics.

It is not yet known where the clinics will be based.