PHOTOS: New Building Now Fully Operational At Royal Sussex Hospital

The newest hospital building in the NHS, the Louisa Martindale Building, is now fully open at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

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.

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 patient.

“This will improve services for staff and the more than 100,000 patients a year who will be treated in the new building.”

• CLeaning team around the new main recpetion desk
• Four bed bay in LMB
• Interventional Radiology Theatre
• Level 4 terrace
• LMB east elevation looking towards the city centre
• Matt and his dad Graham - Crti Care - 3 July 2023 - close crop
• Michael and Mary - Stroke Ward - 3 July 23
• New main entrance for RSCH
• RSCH site from the sea including LMB
• Single Ensuite Room
• Waiting area for Imaging outpatients
• Ward base in critical care
• Ward base on level 7

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The upper floors of the 11 storey, £500 million Louisa Martindale Building are given over to wards, with each patient room benefitting from natural light and a sea view. 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.

“It is simply fantastic,” says Charlotte Spring, attending her first appointment in the new building. “From the moment you walk in the experience is different in every way. I’m amazed.”

The building is packed with new technologies to support healthcare, including all new scanners and equipment for the Imaging Department, a new suite of theatres for neurosurgery and interventional radiology, and the latest in critical care technology to support the care of some of the most unwell patients.

“Moving here made me feel like a human being again,” says Matt Woods who has been a patient in Critical Care for 72 days. “I woke up in hospital after an accident. The staff have been wonderful and I am making progress, slowly. But it wasn’t until I came to this building that I felt I was part of a larger world again.”

Moving from the Thomas Kemp Tower 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.

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 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.

The Trust have been supported by the Department of Health and Social Care that funded the Louisa Martindale Building. The scheme has been supported to completion by the New Hospital Programme as part of the commitment to 40 hospitals by 2030. The New Hospital Programme will continue to support the Trust as they complete Stages 2 and 3 of the redevelopment.