A new £521,000 education centre which features a new library and a range of purpose-built rooms has been officially opened at St Helier Hospital.

It has an “extensive” collection of medical journals and textbooks, high-definition projectors, virtual reality headsets, and classrooms.

There is also a new lecture theatre with an ID-card based security system that enables out-of-hours access for people who need to use it.

Special guest Professor Martin Rossor, from the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, opened the new facility.

Attendees and members of the Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust were then given a tour of the centre and shown what’s on offer.

This included a CPR demonstration and some NHS-endorsed educational board games before the tour moved onto the Hirson Library and e-learning suites.

Dr James Marsh, a joint medical director at Epsom and St Helier, believes the new centre will provide a “first-class education” facility for trainee doctors.

He said: “It’s not just our trainee doctors who will be benefiting from the centre either. I know that many of our existing staff have expressed an interest in taking part in research projects with us and with our new education centre now open, we can offer them the chance to take part in library-based research programmes, so I hope to see even more students come through our doors in the days to come.

“I am really pleased to see how the new education centre has turned out – it is light, bright and full of helpful members of staff and great resources to assist with learning.

“It is clear to see that a lot of hard work and thought has gone into the creation of the centre, so I am really glad to see that everyone’s hard work has paid off.

“I am positive that this new centre is really going to give our already outstanding educational programmes an excellent base of operations to assist with providing a superb level of education to our students and staff.”