A new nursery at Hinchingbrooke Hospital was officially opened on Friday (January 23).

The £500,000 investment has seen the old nursery, run by HRH Nurseries, demolished to make way for residential properties and an Ormiston nursery opened up in a disused hospital building.

Mark Cammies, director of estates and facilities, told The Hunts Post: “There was a previous commercial nursery on the front of the site. We needed to relocate the nursery and as normally hospitals don’t run nurseries we thought we could bring in a charity to run it as not-for-profit.

“It’s part of our programme to enhance staff retention as if we make a surplus it will go back in to make childcare costs cheaper.”

He added: “We had our soft opening in November, and have 56 children there at the moment. In phase one we will be allowed 100 children, but we expect to fill it by the end of the year.

“When it was opened on Friday, the lady from Ormiston said the Ofsted inspector who came to sign it off told her it was the nicest new nursery she had been to, which was lovely.”