Designing the hospital: Frequently Asked Questions

There are two main factors that have made the building much taller than the current hospital.

Firstly, we need to keep the existing hospital fully operational while we build the new one, which has restricted amount of space available for the footprint of the hospital.

Secondly – and most importantly – this approach provides better outcomes for patients.  Modern hospitals are being designed to deliver care and services as effectively and efficiently as possible, based on grouping together services that need to work closely together – such as A&E, theatres and diagnostics – so that patients get the care they need as quickly as possible. This means building ‘up’ rather than ‘out’.

Building up rather than out also means a smaller footprint on the ground, which helps protect the green space and biodiversity on the site. And it also means we can arrange the hospital’s supporting systems – ventilation, engineering, infrastructure – much more efficiently.

The other advantage for patients is that having wards higher up will offer everyone views of the beautiful surrounding countryside, which evidence shows helps people’s recovery.

Right now, the hospital spans a quarter of a mile from one end to the other. This vast distance means our staff spend significant time simply walking between departments. This slows down doctors’ ward rounds and delays how quickly specialists can reach emergency cases in A&E. A more compact, modern design will dramatically reduce travel times, allowing our teams to spend more time with patients and provide faster specialist care when every minute counts.

Before settling on the current site, we looked into what other options might be available, taking account of the need to find a site that would be in a suitable location for patients and staff to access.  However, the current site was the only feasible option for delivering the new hospital within the required timescale.

We know traffic is a concern for local residents and have looked at ways to improve this in the long-term. Most significantly, a second access road is included in the design. This will be built before the new hospital and multistorey carpark so it can be used as a separate access for construction traffic. Once completed, it will be able to be used by all traffic and help to improve the flow of traffic and reduce congestion.

We understand people’s concern about disruption during construction and the length of the building time required for a project of this scale. Construction traffic management plans will be developed with the contractor to minimise disruption as far as possible, including off-site parking for contractors. Deliveries will be staged to prevent queues on the main road, with vehicles held in areas away from the site and brought in when needed. There will be clear channels for residents to raise concerns as work progresses and we will share more details once work on the plans starts.

We are building a new multi-storey car park which will greatly improve parking for both patients and staff. This will be constructed before the main hospital build begins and the design incorporates suggestions gathered from local people and staff including larger bays, more accessible parking spaces and electric charging spaces. The P1 car park near the current outpatients will also continue to be available and there will be additional surface parking and drop-off zones, with the flexibility to increase parking on site in the future if required.

Extensive work is being carried out to determine how many spaces will be needed and ensure we have sufficient parking on site for both patients and staff. Since the original plans for the multi-storey car park were submitted, there have been a number of changes, including plans to move more services into community settings. This will reduce the demand for parking on the hospital site so we are currently reviewing the plans for the multi-storey car park. In addition to the multi-storey car park, we will be keeping the current P1 car park and there will be additional surface parking spaces created and drop off areas to improve access for patients. The plan for the site is still being developed and there will be flexibility to include space for additional surface parking if necessary.

The site sits on a hill, well above the river and the Environment Agency higher risk flood zones. The flood risk for the site has been assessed and is well below the threshold of 1:100 year risk meaning only an extreme and exceptionally rare combination of circumstances would pose a significant risk.

The landscape of the site will also be specifically designed to manage flood scenarios so that the buildings themselves would not be at risk. We are also upgrading some of the surface water sewers to help manage any flood risk and water entering the public sewers will be limited so that it is no greater than current amounts. including factoring in any changes for future climate change.

On ground conditions, the team has carried out a thorough programme of site investigation surveys including drilling boreholes across the site to build a detailed picture of what lies beneath. The new hospital will be built on piles drilled down to solid bedrock. This is a well-established engineering approach that ties the foundations directly to stable rock, regardless of what the ground is like closer to the surface.

It’s also worth noting that the ICU wing and office building were built recently using modern foundations so there is a proven track record of building successfully on this site.