Counties Manukau District Health Board has revealed plans for a major new medical training facility in South Auckland.
The DHB says the Centre for Health Services Innovation will be the first of its kind in this country, costing about $40 million.
It will be run in conjunction with major tertiary education providers in the region and the Manukau City Council.
The board's chief executive, Geraint Martin, says the area faces the challenges of a quickly growing and ethnically diverse population.
He says there is a need to train up to an extra thousand clinical staff each year to cope with the growth, and the board will look at training all levels of medical staff.
Mr Martin says the board is still getting approval for the facility, but hope to have it running by 2011.