Royal Sussex County Hospital Planning application Submitted

As issued by the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals has today submitted its plans to redevelop the Royal Sussex County Hospital to Brighton and Hove City Council.

The main buildings at the front of the County Hospital were built nearly 200 years ago – before Florence Nightingale started nursing – and are amongst the oldest in the NHS.  The wards are cramped, the other clinical and public areas are inadequate and there is an overwhelming need to replace them with modern facilities which are welcoming, accessible and purpose-built for the provision of 21st century healthcare.

The redevelopment will replace all the buildings at the front of the site from the Barry Building on the western side to the Cancer Centre on the eastern perimeter.  Two new state-of-the-art hospital buildings will take their place and this will bring Elderly Care, General Medicine, HIV and Clinical Infection wards up to modern standards; relocate and expand the Hurstwood Park Regional Centre for Neurosciences; establish the hospital as the Major Trauma Centre for the region and create a bigger Cancer Centre.

The new build will include 361 beds, 75% of which will be in single, en-suite rooms; a helipad so patients who have suffered a major trauma can be transferred directly to the hospital by air ambulance; and 350 additional parking spaces.

Building works will start in 2012 and the plan is to complete the stage one building – the larger of the two – by the summer of 2017 and the stage two building by 2020.

(BSUH NHS Trust)Chief Executive Duncan Selbie said:
“It is vital we get the go-ahead as soon as possible because this is something the City and the region urgently needs.  I am constantly inspired by how the sorry state of our hopeless buildings does not diminish the enthusiasm or commitment of the people who work within them but the condition of these buildings is shocking and they need to be pulled down and replaced.”