A residential eating disorder facility in Canberra is expected to be completed by the end of next year, after the ACT government awarded a design contract for the project.
Collard Clarke Jackson Canberra Pty Ltd will complete the consultation and design work for the facility, with construction expected to begin towards the end of 2022.
The facility, which has a site identified in Coombs, will provide a home-like environment to help people with eating disorders recover, the government has said.
Mental Health Minister Emma Davidson said the government was committed to getting the facility right, because after it was built it would be used for decades.
"This isn't a private service, and it's something that we haven't seen a lot of before. So when you're designing and building something that is quite unique and quite new, it's worth taking the time to work with the clinical experts and the people with lived experience to make sure you're getting that design right," Ms Davidson said.
Ms Davidson said the design contractors would be consult and preparing plans for a flexible facility, and consider what services could be co-located on the slated block.
"Sometimes once you've started running the service, you realise that demand might be slightly different to what you expected or that the way in which you deliver services might be slightly different or you might want to co-locate with other services that are related to it," she said.
Ms Davidson said the facility would also take patients from surrounding NSW regions.
"It's basically the next steps in what we've learned from the evidence base of care about how we can best support people with eating disorders," she told the Sunday Canberra Times.
"And the ACT is actually a really good place to do that, with the universities that we've got here that provide mental health clinician training and education, as well as having a tertiary hospital here."
No facility currently exists for people requiring inpatient treatment for an eating disorder outside a hospital setting in the ACT.
People with eating disorders have also faced significant wait times for clinical support in the territory.
Collard Clarke Jackson Canberra Pty Ltd have been previously contracted by the ACT government for design work on the Clare Holland House hospice expansion and as the principal consultant on ACT Health's medical imaging expansion services project.
The ACT government in January opened an eating disorders clinical hub, which provides information and support to people managing an eating disorder at home or in the community before they need to be hospitalised.
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