AN award winning building providing treatment and assessment for people with dementia will be officially opened this week.

Dame Gill Morgan, who chairs the Alzheimer’s Society, will open the new Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (NTW) dementia centre at Monkwearmouth Hospital in Sunderland on Thursday, July 31.

NTW chairman Hugh Morgan Williams said: “The dementia centre and its dedicated staff have already made a massive difference to some of our service users and carers and will continue to be a place of comfort and compassion for many years to come.”

The state-of-the-art 24 bed unit opened its doors to its first patients last November and complements existing in-patient services at Monkwearmouth, meeting the needs of people with dementia and associated complex needs including challenging behaviour.

The new £10 million project includes individual en-suite rooms, communal areas, gardens, therapeutic activity rooms, a recreation kitchen and memory walk.

Outside each room there are also memory boxes containing familiar items from home which will help patients identify their room.

Dame Gill said: “It will be an honour to open the centre because such first-class facilities prove we are heading in the right direction in our efforts to make life better for people with dementia and their loved ones."