A NEW health centre offering a variety of treatments is to open at West Oxford Community Centre this month.

The Oxford Community Health Hub is due to open its doors at the end of the month after building work finishes at the Botley Road centre.

It is taking over the rooms used by the GP surgery before it closed down in July last year.

A total of six health practitioners are signed up, including a chiropractor for back pain, a cognitive behavioural therapist, acupuncturists, a nutritionalist, and a healing masseuse.

The sessions are designed to be affordable for everyone in the community.

The hub is the brainchild of acupuncturist Rebecca Minton, from Cowley.

The 31-year-old said: “It is a bit of a building site at the moment but we are hoping to open towards the end of the month.

“It was an idea I got when I went to Portland, America, in 2010 as an acupuncturist, and because they have a private healthcare system, I was very interested in it.

“It meant they offered services for the community which are meant to be affordable to people.

“So when I came back to England, I started looking for the right spot and opening a community clinic in a community centre seemed like the right thing to do.”

She estimated a typical acupuncture session would cost £45 to £50, but the Oxford clinic would charge £15 to £30.

Most of the treatments would cost around £30.

A website for the Oxford Community Health Hub is being built at the moment for people to book appointments.

It could see up to 130 people a week and would be open from around 9am until 9pm from Monday to Friday, as well as Saturday mornings from 9am until 1pm.

Ms Minton added: “It is really exciting to see such a passionate team of people come together who want to help the community.

“It is great to be involved.”

The building work is being finished this month to turn the four rooms which had been used as a GP surgery into a waiting room, a large treatment room and a small treatment room.