The Kent Institute of Medicine & Surgery (KIMS), a £95 million independent hospital on a seven-acre site near Maidstone, which, it is claimed, will ‘transform acute and specialist health provision in the county’, has been officially opened by HRH The Duke of Gloucester.
The royal visit saw the ‘independent, patient-focused, clinician-led’ hospital toured by the royal party, civic dignitaries, and ‘the team responsible for making it all possible’. The latter include KIMS President and marketing director, Franz Dickmann, ‘the driving force’ behind the KIMS, and his wife, Dr Phyllis Holt, a consultant cardiologist. The two other founders are the couple’s son, KIMS development director, James Dickmann, and Steven Bernstein, a London-based solicitor instrumental in raising the funding to enable the hospital to be built. Speaking at the opening, Dr Holt explained that, a decade ago, a group of Kent-based cardiologists had striven, unsuccessfully, to secure NHS funding for a new Kent tertiary care centre, but, thanks to private and bank-sourced finance, and the ‘buy-in’ of local surgeons and clinicians, Kent’s first – and currently only – such facility, had finally become a reality. The KIMS has 74 dedicated inpatient beds, including seven chemotherapy rooms, a further 20 day care beds, seven intensive therapy unit beds, and high dependency beds. The all single-bedded hospital will provide complex procedures and acute care in areas including cardiology, cardiac surgery, neurology, neurosurgery, complex orthopaedics, and surgical oncology. KIMS explained: “In a first for Kent, local patients will be able to avoid lengthy journeys to London. The new hospital will have one of the UK’s largest cardiology departments, and will be the county’s first and only institute to carry out openheart surgery.” The new facility was completed on time and on budget by Vinci Construction. Architects were David Morley, and M&E contractors, NG Bailey. The design team sought to give the buildings a feel that would meld well with the neighbouring fields and woodland – a theme reflected in artwork throughout the hospital, but particularly eye-catching in two full height vertical green walls on the exterior. The imaging, cardiology, ultrasound, and critical care theatres and wards, will feature over 50 GE Healthcare-designed technologies, including a Discovery CT750HD GSI, reportedly ‘the world’s first high definition, low radiation’ CT system; a wide bore 3 T MRI; Vscan, a ‘pocketsized ultrasound visualisation device that brings scanning to the point-of-care’, and acute care equipment.
