History

The background to the development of the Centre for Health Science is an interesting story.  The Highlands has never had a medical school of its own and although the quality of patient care, teaching and training has always been good, not a lot of healthcare research activity was undertaken.  In the 1990’s Highlands and Islands Enterprise decided on a policy of developing the knowledge economy and they concluded that a healthcare cluster was one of the most promising areas to develop further.

Inverness Medical, a medical devices company manufacturing diabetes monitoring equipment, was encouraged to locate to Inverness in 1995. Following a period of growth it was taken over by Johnson and Johnson in 2000. The re-named Lifescan (Scotland) Ltd. developed rapidly both in manufacturing capacity and in research and development with a total staff complement of around 1500 by 2006.

The idea of the Centre for Health Science was initially conceived in 2002 by Highlands and Islands Enterprise who were looking for ways to bring together the many components of healthcare in the Highlands.  The idea was that maximum synergy could be achieved from placing groups of highly talented staff in an appropriate environment where they would be able to work in close proximity for the first time.  The concept was further developed in collaboration with NHS Highland, the University of Stirling and National Health Service Education for Scotland (NES). It was originally planned that the building should be completed in 2 phases at a cost of approximately £15m of which £2.7m was obtained from the ERDF.

Before the building started in 2006 the concept of adding phase 3 was proposed. The reason for the extra phase was to accommodate a new Highland Diabetes Institute with a projected cost of around £8m, including a further £800k from the ERDF.  Phase 1 was completed in Autumn 2006, Phase 2 was completed in summer 2008 and Phase 3 was completed in November 2008.