New pictures of the fully-completed £500m ‘3Ts’ facility at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton have been released as the building opens its doors to its first inpatients.

The development is transforming the Royal Sussex County Hospital, one of the oldest medical centres in the country, with a three-phase plan to improve services and provide a new regional centre for trauma, teaching, and tertiary care (3Ts).

The new images were released by McBains, the construction consultancy providing construction supervision, cost management, and project management services for the delivery of the facility.

The building was developed and constructed by Laing O’Rourke in partnership with WSP and BDP Architects.

The newly-completed Stage 1 – the first and largest of the three-stage programme – will see the opening of 62,000sq m of clinical and support accommodation in the new Louisa Martindale Building, named after the first female GP in Brighton who became one of the world’s leading gynaecologists. 

From old to new

The redevelopment will take the front half of the hospital from the 19th to 21st Century by facilitating the decanting of services from the oldest acute ward building in the NHS – the Barry Building, which opened in 1828 – to the newest clinical building in NHS England. 

The building will house more than 30 wards and departments as well as diagnostic and theatre capacity and increased capacity for the departments with high demand, including neurosciences, stroke services, and intensive care.

The re-development includes:

• Approximately 200 single-bed rooms throughout the upper floors, as well as four-bed bays and specialist rooms such as radiopharmacy and major medical equipment, including MRI scanners
• The work will increase most wards by five times as much space per bed as is currently available, significantly improving patient experience and the space for doctors, nurses, and support staff
• Currently, all neuroscience services offered are spread over multiple sites, but the new development will unify all services under one roof in the new Louisa Martindale Building. This will also house the intensive care and high dependency units on the same floor to ensure life-saving care can be administered as efficiently as possible
• Relocation of the 165-year-old, Grade 2-listed Chapel interior – the oldest operating chapel in a healthcare facility in the UK – from the Barry Building into the new building

Steve Brooker, project director at McBains, said: “We are delighted to be able to unveil the first new pictures of the fully-completed Louisa Martindale Building, which will significantly enhance patient care for the region.

“An incredible amount of hard work has gone into ensuring the successful completion of the building and it is a true testament of the power of collaboration and teamwork that we’ve managed to achieve this incredible milestone.

Transforming lives

“We now look ahead to its transformation into a working hospital and its vital role in transforming the lives of patients, staff, and visitors.”

Stage 2 of the redevelopment is currently in the pre-building stage, with McBains leading the consultancy of the planning stages.

This will involve the removal of the existing vacant buildings and construction of a new Sussex Cancer Centre, providing 29,000sq m of clinical and support accommodation, providing far more availability for current and future patients, and increasing the number of chemotherapy beds and radiotherapy machines.