DETAILED plans for Upton-upon-Severn's new community medical centre are due to be unveiled next month.

The £2m project, one of the first of its kind, will combine all the town's primary health care services under one roof on a site at Tunnel Hill.

The ambitious scheme will put the emphasis on preventative medicine, combining the present GP practice with a range of other services.

There will be up to 80 staff, with opticians, dentists, chiropodists, physiotherapists, health visitors, district nurses and social workers alongside the family doctors.

An outline plan received an enthusiastic reception at a public meeting in July and a full planning application is now being prepared on the instruction of Dr George Wilson and his partners.

After consultation with planning officers, Gould Singleton Architects expect to have it ready for submission to Malvern Hills District Council in February.

"With this site, we felt we needed more details than an outline application required," said southern area planning officer Rosalyn Field.

Being at the bottom of Tunnel Hill, part of the suggested green field site is subject to flooding and the access road would have to be raised, but the building itself would be above the flood plain.

If the application is approved, building could start later this year and be complete by summer 2003.

In the meantime, temporary buildings are being put up to ease overcrowding at the School Lane Surgery, which has been extended 10 times since it was built in 1967 and has outgrown its town centre site.

The surgery covers an area extending from the Malvern Hills to the M5 and from the edge of Callow End and Kempsey in the north to the M50 in the south.

"We now have 10,500 patients, compared with about 5,000 when I started 30 years ago," said Dr Wilson.

"We're desperate for space and feel Upton needs facilities for 21st Century healthcare.

"It's going to be much more than a GP surgery.

"We want it to be a community health facility, rather than a sickness centre. It's wide open for any health practitioners who want to be part of it."