‘Options’ for hospitals revamp to be presented in early spring
‘TOMORROW’S NUH’ PLANS WILL INCLUDE REFURBISHING AND REPLACING BUILDINGS
PLANS are progressing at pace for a “once-in-a-lifetime” upgrade of Nottingham University Hospitals’ buildings.
Several proposals have been mooted - though none confirmed - including replacing the large Nightingale wards at Nottingham City Hospital and building a women and children’s hospital.
Currently, NUH bosses are looking at what services they expect the city and area to need in the future, based on the current demographics.
They will then aim to shape the hospital buildings around that, rather than design a new hospital and then working out what to put in it.
From those studies, health bosses are then expected to present a list of options in “early spring”, when a clearer picture will start to emerge of how the new facilities will look.
In 2019, NHS figures showed the ongoing repairs bill at NUH was among the highest in the country, at £104 million.
Now, NUH bosses have provided an update on the quickly-developing plans, known as “Tomorrow’s NUH”.
Sarah Fleming is the head of project delivery, and said: “The outcome of Tomorrow’s NUH will be refurbished and/or new buildings.
“What these buildings need to be will be determined by the clinical services the hospital will provide in the future.
“So they’ve been looking at how we will need services to work, and therefore how we will need our buildings to be configured to make sure these services work as well as they can for our population.
“Clearly this is a long-term project, so we are looking at the activity we’re going to have in the hospital over the next five, 10 and 20 years.
“This relies on scenario modelling, we have to use data we’ve already got around our population and try to predict forward.
“Clearly that’s very difficult, because so many things can happen, but it’s really fundamental that we build a hospital that’s future-proof, because this is such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we really don’t want to get this wrong.
“So a critical part is that we understand what our population will look like, and what will their needs be over the long term.”
Lucy Dadge is the chief commissioning officer at the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire CCG, and was asked whether the money could be spread out more widely in the NHS to support new GPS and primary care centres. She said: “The hospital has flagged that they need to spend money on their buildings to stay safe and continue to provide services.
“Great as the hospitals are at the service they’re providing, they are limited by the estate they’re operating from. “The money that is allocated (by the Government) is for hospitals only, acute hospital buildings, but we’ve got to make sure we do what we have to do to community and primary care buildings to make that work as well.
“There are some things about NUH estate that just need to be replaced. So infrastructure is too old and it needs to be replaced to be safe. You can’t get around that.”
Some patients at Nottingham City Hospital are treated in Nightingale wards - essentially large rooms without subdivisions.
Ms Dadge continued: “We don’t want Nightingale wards. Personal affection as I’ve got for much of City Hospital it’s not the way to provide care, so we’re going to have to replace those wards and we will replace them according to modern infection control standards.”
This is such a once-ina-lifetime opportunity that we really don’t want to get this wrong.
Sarah Fleming