New hospital centre taking shape

IPSWICH Hospital's new multi-million pound treatment centre is today rapidly beginning to take shape.

The £26m Garrett Anderson Centre will include a new accident and emergency department and theatres for day surgery, and is designed to revolutionise the way patients are treated at the hospital.

The centre's internal metal structure dominates the southern end of the hospital site and Andrew Reed, the hospital's chief executive, said he is delighted to see it coming together.

He said: “Building work started at the end of March and I am pleased to say that it is currently on-time and on-budget.

“The building contractors are doing an excellent job.

“We hope to have the centre completed by the end of 2007 and have patients in it very shortly after that.”

The centre, which is named after the country's first female doctor, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, has been funded through a private finance initiative.

This means a private company, Prospect Healthcare, will pay for the construction and upkeep of the building in return for receiving rent payments from the hospital.

Mr Reed said: “It is going to be a fantastic facility for the hospital.

“I do appreciate that it is going to add to the hospital's costs at a time when we have significant financial problems but we have to ensure that for the long term Ipswich Hospital is a viable, successful treatment centre and in order to do that we have got to invest.

“It will change not just the look of the hospital but the shape of it and the way it operates.”

Mr Reed said it would give the hospital the ability to move services around in the hospital, taking some of the departments that are currently housed in the older buildings at the north end of the site, into the newer buildings in the south end.

As well as a new A&E department and day surgery facilities, the centre will also house a new critical care unit, freeing up space in the existing buildings.