At a glance
Client/project partners: Brighton and Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust
Status: Live
Location: Brighton
The Louisa Martindale Building, known as Phase 1, was successfully handed over to the Trust in January 2023. The building is a flagship for modern healthcare across the region replacing the oldest NHS acute ward building in England, the Barry Building, has cared for patients since 1828, twenty years before Florence Nightingale started nursing.
CHt is responsible for the delivery of the MEP services on this design and build contract to replace all buildings in front of the existing hospital in three stages. Stage 1 of the 3Ts redevelopment was the first and largest of the three-stage programme that has now taken the front half of the hospital from the 19th to 21st century.
The new clinical buildings provide modern, state-of-the-art facilities where more than 100,000 patients a year from across Brighton and Sussex will be treated. This will transform the experience of care for patients and the work environment for staff. Providing new facilities for more than 30 wards and departments, new diagnostic and theatre capacity as well as increased capacity for the departments with high demand, including, neurosciences, stroke services and intensive care.
The ground floor of the building houses the hospital’s main entrance and Welcome Space making it easier for people to get around the site and brings together routes to the rest of the hospital, spacious waiting areas, a new hospital shop and access to an underground car park giving dedicated patient and visitor parking directly beneath the new building.
The 11 storey building gives patients, visitors and staff a hospital environment they can be proud of and one that will be fit to provide healthcare care for decades to come.
Our Approach
Working with BDP and the client early on allowed CHt to introduce the benefits of MEP, DfMA and Digital Engineering – providing significant programme and logistical benefits for the complex scheme. The design maximises natural light and open space, with five times as much space per bed, 65% of which are single, ensuite rooms.
The design of the new building reflects the principles of the Trust’s patient first improvement system by listening to the people who know the services the best, staff and patients, and bringing their views into the planning stages.
Added value to clients
Working in such close proximity to a live hospital environment required meticulous project planning and clear communication with all stakeholders. We used our digital engineering expertise to clearly illustrate the strategy to the client and to notify them about potential implications for the existing facilities throughout the different phases. Using a digital model, which we created for the scheme, we generated a series of 4D snapshots to effectively communicate the logistics strategy to the client.
“Patient experience and care is at the heart of the design for Stage 1. Staff from every department moving into the building have had a hand in designing their areas. We have used traditional plans and virtual reality to help them understand how their new departments will work and to plan how they will care for patients in them. Patients have taken the time to review ideas and plans with us and together with staff have influenced the design of hundreds of aspects of the building, from the layout of the changing rooms in outpatient departments to the positioning of medicine and linen rooms on wards. This has given us the ideal combination of facilities that prioritise patient experience and the most efficient ways to deliver care. This will be of benefit to every patient coming to the new building, and to staff by supporting them in their work. From the Stroke Unit at the top of Stage 1 to the Discharge Lounge on its ground floor, patients will experience the best a modern hospital building can offer.”
“This impressive building, and the 3Ts Redevelopment as a whole, will give us the kind of care environment around which our future as a major, acute, teaching hospital trust can be built.”
“It’s a well-designed, nice space with big open waiting areas. People who are using existing facilities know just how much of an improvement it is.”
“This is going to be fantastic for staffing, for staff welfare.”
“It’s changed how we are able to deliver high-quality care.”
“From what we are working in at the moment to seeing what we will be moving into, it feels very exciting for the patients and the staff.”
