The £80 million redevelopment of the Bristol Royal Infirmary
(BRI), which will greatly improve the hospital environment for
patients in the centre of Bristol, reached another milestone today
as the Board of University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust
(UH Bristol) approved the full business case for the
redevelopment.
At the end of March it was announced that the Trust had secured
the £70 million loan for the refurbishment by the Department of
Health. The Trust aims to sign a contract with construction company
Laing O'Rourke in the summer.
Robert Woolley, Chief Executive, said: "We have worked on this
redevelopment for many years and today is a very big day for the
Trust, for our patients and for our staff. We are redeveloping our
hospitals to improve the hospital environment for our patients and
our staff and the new facilities will enable us to transform the
ways in which services are delivered to patients. This
redevelopment will enable us to work more efficiently, ensuring
that patients are diagnosed and treated quickly and are only
admitted to hospital if they need to be. We are working with our
NHS partners in this area to transform care for our patients and
this is a very important part of this."
The redevelopment will consist of a new ward block built on the
Terrell Street site behind the BRI, refurbishment of the Queens
building, the conversion of wards in the King Edward building and
the retirement of the Old Building, which still houses Nightingale
inpatient wards.
Dr Chris Monk, a consultant anaesthetist and Head of the
Division of Medicine, said: "This is fantastic news. The Old
Building, built in 1735, is the oldest NHS building still in
clinical use. The inside of the Old Building and the King Edward
Building are old-fashioned and impractical. Not designed for modern
practice, either for medicine or surgery, the buildings have
limited and inflexible space which means our staff face huge
challenges in delivering their high standard of care for adult
patients. The new and updated buildings will enable our clinicians
to improve care for patients and will also enable us to work more
efficiently."
This will be done by:
• Putting the right services adjacent to one another in the
hospital to ensure that wherever possible, patients can be treated
quickly in one area and will not need to travel long distances
through the hospital;
• Streamlining the emergency assessment and admission
process to give patients rapid access to diagnostic tests and to
reduce the amount of unnecessary time they spend in hospital;
• Improving the way in which patients are assessed prior to
having an operation to reduce the amount of time they need to spend
in hospital and improve their experience of their care;
• Improving the environment for patients and staff by
providing modern, state-of-the-art facilities which meet the latest
environmental standards and infection control standards;
• Increasing the number of single rooms to ensure our
patients' privacy and dignity is respected. This will also help us
to further reduce the number of hospital acquired infections and
ensure compliance with single sex accommodation requirements.
Within the BRI, the refurbishment will provide:
• An integrated assessment unit, bringing together all the
clinical staff to assess and treat adult patients who need to be
admitted to hospital;
• An urgent ambulatory care centre, adjacent to the
emergency department, where the patients who do not need to be
admitted to hospital can be treated, and sent back home or
into community services;
• A purpose built short stay unit for patients who are
likely to be discharged within 60 hours;
• A state-of-the-art intensive care unit;
• A surgical floor with wards that are located directly
next door to theatres and the intensive care unit; and
• A medical floor where key medical wards are adjacent to
each other to allow integrated care by all clinical staff.
Dr Mike Nevin, a consultant in intensive care and Head of the
Division of Surgery, Head and Neck, said: "It is impossible to
overstate exactly how important making these structural changes are
in regard to our ability as a Trust to offer the highest standards
of clinical care to the people of Bristol. We will be offering 21st
century models of care for medicine and surgery in state-of-the-art
buildings that are fit for purpose. Better diagnostics, and senior
medical input in the new integrated assessment unit, will help
decrease the number of patients admitted to hospital unnecessarily,
returning the patients back to the safety of their homes, and to
our partners providing community services."
This is the second full business case that UH Bristol has signed
up to in as many months. At the end of February, the Board agreed
the business case to centralise specialist children's services at
the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. Paediatric burns,
orthopaedics, plastic surgery and neurosciences services are due to
move from Frenchay Hospital in 2014. Services will be housed in an
extension to the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children which will
link to the new ward block for the BRI. Last week Bristol City
Council granted planning permission for the extension to the
Children's Hospital provided some conditions are met.
