The Louisa Martindale Building at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, part of the ongoing major ‘3Ts’ redevelopment scheme on the Brighton site, will open its doors to patients next month.
University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust says over 100,000 patients a year will be treated across its eleven floors, ‘in purpose-designed environments that meet the latest healthcare standards’. Peter Larsen-Disney, the Clinical director for the 3Ts Redevelopment, said: “This is a once-in -a-generation improvement for patients requiring hospital care from across Sussex. We have a staged programme to move services in – starting in the first half of June – which will take almost four weeks to complete. We have been carefully planning these moves with the teams for months.”
The Imaging Department, which benefits from new scanning equipment, including MRIs and CT scanners, will see the first patients in the new building. Letters are already going out to them, and to those of other outpatient services moving into the new facility. Ward moves will take place later in June, and will take a week. Hundreds of members of staff have visited their new wards and departments in the building in preparation for the moves, and the Trust says that ‘reactions have been very positive’.
Charlotte Lee, Nurse manager of ENT said, “Every aspect of our service will benefit from the move to our new Head and Neck Outpatient department. We have always been proud of the care we have provided, and now we will have an environment we can be proud of as well.”
“The shared spaces are beautiful,” said Caroline New-Jackson, Principal Cardiac Physiologist. “They improve the environment for everyone, and will do so much for morale and the sense of wellbeing.”
Many of the services moving to the Louisa Martindale Building are coming from the Barry Building next door, the oldest acute NHS building in England, which opened its doors 195 years ago. Tedianne Delacruz, a ward manager from the Barry Building, said, “It is going to have a huge impact. Our current conditions are cramped and challenging. We will have five times as much space per bed in the new building.” Across the new building 65% of beds will be in single en-suite rooms, with the remainder in four bedded bays.
Completing the service moves into the Louisa Martindale Building will create space for stage 2 of the redevelopment, a new Sussex Cancer Centre replacing the Barry Building, and for the re-configuration of the hospital’s Emergency Department.
