Bitterne residents are to get their very own £250,000 NHS Walk-In Centre.

Plans are under way for the new service - the second of its kind in the city - which will be housed at Bitterne Health Centre.

The project, which will be overseen by the Southampton City Primary Care Trust (PCT), follows the success of the first facility opened in Howard's Grove, Shirley.

And there's further good news for residents living on the east side of Southampton who could see another service in the Thornhill area opened within three years.

Alterations to the existing health centre in Bitterne begin next week to make way for a special drop-in clinic, featuring a team of nurses, which will be open from 2pm to 10pm seven days a week by the end of July.

Dr David Paynton, chairman of the executive committee for Southampton City Primary Care Trust (PCT), which is overseeing the development, said the new facility would be mainly for minor injuries and illnesses.

He said: "We are rolling it out as an extension of the service in Shirley and using it as an opportunity to develop an out-of-hours service for GPs.

"At the moment work's going to start at Bitterne next week on some of the internal changes to the building that have got to be done. Depending on how it goes it may be opening in the morning as well.

"It will be mostly for minor injuries, minor illnesses, but particularly minor injuries because people are waiting hours in casualty and a lot of people don't need to go to casualty."

Some £250,000 is being invested in the project, which is a joint initiative by the PCT, Hampshire Ambulance Service and Southampton General Hospital.

Dr Paynton said: "It's part of the three-year development plan to deliver more services for local people."

There are also plans to develop the service further at a location in Thornhill within the next three years.

Speaking about the plans to develop a service in Thornhill in the future, Dr Paynton said it would depend on the success of the Bitterne centre as to whether the whole service was transferred to Thornhill or whether the project would become a two-site development.

He added: "We are exploring with New Deal for Communities another development for Thornhill, whether in two or three years' time we have another purpose-built building on the Thornhill site which would include X-rays.

"What we want is a proper service on the east side of Southampton."