We needed some good news, so it’s great to be able to report that Wes Streeting has given the go-ahead for the much-needed Women and Children’s Hospital to be built at the Treliske site, on the edge of Truro. I first spoke to Roberta Fuller, the Programme Director for the scheme, in late 2024, when stress levels were high amidst fears that the proposed hospital could fall victim to government spending cuts.
Roberta explained that the existing Princess Alexandra maternity wing is at the end of its functional life and all the clinical spaces are too small to deliver modern 21st century care. Quite aside from the building hazards, (some of the building is being held together with metal bands), it makes enormous sense, from a workforce efficiency as well as a patient safety and comfort perspective, to bring all hospital services for women and children under one roof.
The design of the new building has been years in development, but has been thoughtfully future- proofed with modern digital features such as new digital advances in continuous monitoring of patient vital signs, and digital systems to silence the patient call bells and drive the alerts to staff mobile phones. These advances make it easier to care for patients in more peaceful single rooms, without losing the ability to safely monitor their condition.
There are risks and inefficiencies created by spreading related clinical services over several buildings. The existing paediatric and gynaecology theatres are on two levels and a 10-minute walk along the main hospital corridors, away from the inpatient beds; and whilst the dedicated obstetrics theatres are located close to the Delivery Suite, they are really too cramped for delivering babies by C-section with all the modern equipment now involved. Once services are co-located in the new building, the Paediatric Assessment Unit will be close to the Paediatric Emergency Department, and this will deliver a much-improved experience for distressed patients and their carers arriving in the Emergency Department and then needing to face another long walk to the paediatric wards and assessment unit.
By improving the building for patients, the working conditions for staff are also improved, with dedicated staff rest areas to support clinical teams through long 12-hour shifts designed into the new building . It is obvious that happier, more rested staff will deliver even better care to patients, and this long-awaited new hospital will attract and retain the very best NHS teams to provide the very best care.
Cancelling or severely delaying the project would have hit the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust (RCHT) and the people of Cornwall hard, as this is the only acute hospital in the county. Roberta and her team are extremely pleased and relieved to hear that they will soon be able to deliver their longed-for baby after all!
Roberta told me:
“I am delighted that after years of hard work and lobbying, the Government has today agreed to prioritise the only acute hospital in Cornwall, and support us in the delivery of our vital new Women and Children’s Hospital by 2030. I am sure many of our staff here at RCHT have been celebrating being given the green light to proceed with our plans to support patient care in a modern, safe, and technically advanced environment.
“My whole project team is excited and looking forward to continuing to design and construct this new building over the next 5 years. We first need to complete the detailed design work and planning to submit a successful Full Business Case for Department of Health approval in 2027. Following an innovative modern construction method of “design for manufacturing and assembly” – where some parts of the building are manufactured and part constructed before being delivered to the site for final assembly – we are confident that we can work more quickly and start construction in 2027, with the new hospital completed and open to patients by 2030 or early 2031. This is the biggest financial investment in the health service estate in Cornwall ever; and it will be supporting patients and their families for generations to come.”
Roberta and her team know what they are doing. They are multi-award-winning construction project professionals, and they are justly proud of their recent award winning schemes, including the new Trelawny Scanning suite (with two new MRI scanners); the impressive and modern Lowen Oncology ward; and the Critical Care Healing Garden – one of the very few hospital gardens in England with externally piped medical gases and two outside bed spaces for intensive care patients. We wish them all the best with this latest project and look forward to the grand opening!
