The 70-bed, state-of-the-art specialist rehabilitation centre for NHS patients with a life-changing illness or injury aims to transform rehabilitation provision on a national and international level.

Anthony May, chief executive of NUH, said: ‘This is a significant moment for NUH, for rehabilitation medicine in this country and for the many NHS patients whose lives will be changed and restored in this groundbreaking facility, set in a unique location.'

Situated on 365-acre rural estate where it will share facilities with the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre, the site is part of the New Hospital Programme and boasts the most comprehensive robotics suite in the NHS and first 360 hoist in Europe.

The centre, which is the NHS's first operationally carbon neutral building, will primarily receive patients from across the East Midlands, many of them anticipated to come through the East Midland's Major Trauma Centre – the busiest in the UK and based at NUH.

The national aspect to the NRC is that it will lead rehabilitation research and innovation, as well as providing training and education through an NRC Academy, in collaboration with a consortium of 26 universities throughout England.

The long-term ambition for the NRC is to be the national ‘hub' in a future ‘hub and spoke' model, or a single model multi-site service, with regional rehabilitation units (‘spokes') established across the country to widen impact and benefit as many patients as possible.