A major announcement is to be made next week on Copeland’s new multi-million-pound innovative medical education campus.

Staff appointments have now been made and a business plan for the campus has also been drafted to look at future financing.

Copeland mayor Mike Starkie, who has been involved with the plan, said the campus was a “huge step forward’’ for the future of health care in the area.

The campus will combine academic facilities at the University of Central Lancashire’s (UCLan) Westlakes Science Park with the new West Cumberland Hospital.

The investment is said to be millions over the next five years and the aim is to improve healthcare and develop education in medicine, nursing, pharmacy and dentistry.

Next week’s announcement will reveal the campus’s new professor of medicine and professor of primary care.

The campus will also help towards delivering improvements in remote and rural healthcare, as well as providing a facility to train West Cumbria’s clinical workforce and “attract the best global students to the area to benefit patient care” say health chiefs.

Additionally, it will bring funded teaching and research posts to the area, attracting senior academics and clinicians, as well as carrying out clinical duties within the NHS in the region.

The West Cumberland Medical Education Campus is a collaboration between UCLan, North Cumbria University Hospitals Trust, NHS Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group and the Samuel Lindlow Foundation.