The Kent Institute of Medicine & Surgery (KIMS), an £85 m new hospital which the developers say will ‘transform acute and specialist health provision in the county’, had its ‘topping out’ on 11 February.
The ceremony marked completion of the external structural work of the first phase of what will reportedly be Kent’s only private and NHS tertiary care centre, by VINCI Construction UK, the contractors building the facility, located on a seven acre site on the outskirts of Maidstone. The management and clinicians from KIMS, led by chairman, Steven Bernstein, clinical director, Chris Thom, and clinical chairman, Tony Hammond, and Dan Hollis, regional commercial manager from VINCI Construction UK, welcomed over 80 guests. When the hospital’s first phase is completed, patients will have access to over 300 clinicians, with over 400 people expected to be employed there by late 2014. KIMS will provide advanced and specialist healthcare, including complex procedures and acute care in areas such as cardiology, cardiac surgery, neurosurgery, complex orthopaedics, and surgical oncology, also providing Kent’s only cardiothoracic and neurosurgery tertiary care beds.
