Maria Caulfield MP has welcomed the opening of the new Louisa Martindale building at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, which is set to treat 100,000 patients a year.
Maria Caulfield MP said “This fantastic investment in one of our local hospitals in Sussex shows the commitment of the Government to our area. The huge changes made to the Royal Sussex County Hospital are already been felt by patients and staff alike, making the hospital a nicer place to stay in and a better place to work in.”
Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said “This marks another milestone in the biggest hospital building programme in a generation as we deliver on our commitment to build 40 new hospitals by 2030, expected to be backed by over £20 billion.
“All services have now transferred to the new building - which includes 28 wards and departments and revolutionary healthcare designs so each new patient room will benefit from natural light and a sea view, as well as five times as much space per ward. This will improve services for staff and the 100,000 patients a year who will be treated in the new building.”
More than 100,000 patients a year will be treated in the new building which is the first stage of the redevelopment of the hospital.
All the services from the Barry Building, the oldest acute NHS facility in England, have moved into the Louisa Martindale Building. The two buildings stand side by side, separated by 100 steps and 195 years.
The upper floors of the 11 storey, £500 million Louisa Martindale Building are given over to wards, with patient rooms benefitting from natural light and sea views. There is over five times as much space per patient for the wards moving from the Barry Building.
“There is no comparison,” says Michael Blomfeld, one of the ward patients who moved from the Barry Building to the Louisa Martindale Building. “Everything is better, the space, the light and the views. You just feel so much better in yourself in this new building. They told me it took seven years to build. It was worth every moment.”
Michael’s wife, Mary, agrees. “You can actually see the difference it makes for the staff being here. It’s like they have room to breathe and can do their jobs without fighting the building. That old place needs to be knocked down.”
The lower floors of the building house outpatient departments. Patients’ experience and privacy and dignity were at the heart of the designs for these departments, where the extra space has allowed for massive improvements to waiting, changing and consultation areas across the board.
Moving into the Louisa Martindale Building has allowed critical care to bring together all their services in a single unit, in line with best clinical practice for patient care. The move has also allowed neurosciences, respiratory medicine and the head and neck outpatient department to bring together parts of their services that were separated before.
31 trees and more than 1400 plants and shrubs have been used to provide accessible green spaces for patients and staff, from the courtyard garden on level 1 to the stroke and neurology rehabilitation terrace on level 10.
The transfer of the final service last week, saw the Louisa Martindale Building become the new main entrance for the hospital, with more than ten times the space of the previous entrance. Its welcome space has large waiting areas for visitors and patients, a shop and takeaway café, and links to other buildings on the site.
With the Barry Building now empty, work can begin on Stage 2 of the redevelopment that will replace it with a new Sussex Cancer Centre – the second of three stages of the 3Ts redevelopment. The new centre will bring cancer wards and outpatient services together in a single building for the first time and provide more beds and greater capacity for chemotherapy and radiotherapy.