Healthcare that's fit for the 21st century (From Salisbury Journal)

Healthcare that's fit for the 21st century

8:44am Monday 8th January 2007 in

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THIS is the first glimpse inside the New Forest's brand new £36m community hospital, which opens this week.

The 107-bed, three-storey building on the outskirts of Lymington will soon be filled with the bustle of patients and staff as it opens it doors to the public.

Lymington New Forest Hospital has been dubbed a "one-stop-shop", incorporating appointment, consultant, diagnosis and treatment services - all under one roof.

Built by Ryhurst under the private finance initiative, health bosses took official ownership of the building last week. That came as the Department of Health announced it wanted Partnership Health Group (PHG), a private company, to run all services at the hospital from July in a first scheme of its kind in the country.

Hampshire Primary Care Trust will run it until then.

Since receiving the keys last month, the trust has been busy kitting out the hospital on the Ampress business park.

Some existing patients have already moved in ahead of the doors officially opening.

By the time the hospital opens to the public there will have been 150 deliveries of new equipment. They include 320 sets of crockery, 485 tables and trolleys, 17 examination couches, two anaesthetic machines, one operating theatre table, 31 infusion pumps, six syringe drivers, five defibrillators, 28 new patient beds, 35 blood pressure monitors, 200-plus telephones, computers and fax machines, 193 noticeboards, and one Christmas tree.

Lymington Hospital service manager Liz Connolly said: "We have spent many months choosing and ordering equipment for the new hospital with the help and advice of our doctors, nurses and hospital staff.

"Now it is all delivered we are getting it all set up and in place for when our patients arrive."

Yvonne LeBrun, director of care services for the trust, insisted that the hospital would remain an NHS facility.

"Hospital services will be designed by the NHS to meet the needs of the community and will be funded from the public purse and free of charge to all," she said.

PHG will invest £21m in what managing director Grant Rex called a "ground breaking and strategically important" five-year project.

The project is set to include a new 20,000 patient a year treatment centre at Royal South Hants Hospital in Southampton from 2008 - part of the modernising "a health plan for greater Southampton".

"We look forward to supporting the local health community and working with the staff at Royal South Hants and Lymington New Forest Hospitals in providing significantly enhanced acute and community services for NHS patients," Mr Rex said.

The six-ward Lymington hospital will employ about 400 staff and see about 45,000 patients a year through its 8am to 10pm minor injures unit, outpatient clinics and diagnostic treatment centre, which will carry fast, prebooked day and short-stay surgery such as cataract removal, hip and knee replacements and hernia repair.

The hospital has two theatres, two endoscopy suites, a larger radiology department with a CT scanner from next month, two ultrasound suites, medical and surgical day units, stroke rehabilitation and a surgical ward.

There will be also be an urgent care centre plus support services such as a pharmacy, education and training centre, library, restaurant, league of friends shop and tea bar, hospital radio and staff facilities.

Half of the beds will be immediately filled by patients who are being transferred from the existing Lymington hospital, in Southampton Road, which will be closed.

The site is being sold off to a developer to build 41 houses.

PHG - jointly owned by Care UK Plc and Life Healthcare - currently operates NHS treatment centres in Plymouth, Barlborough, near Chesterfield, and Maidstone.

Lymington New Forest Hospital was due to be officially opened on Tuesday.