THE long-awaited women and children’s hospital at the Royal Cornwall Hospital could open its doors in 2032, the trust’s acting chief executive told a board meeting on Thursday (November 5).

Kim O’Keeffe told Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust (RCHT) board members that a construction company has been appointed, with building due to start in the second half of 2028 and a completion aim of 2032. The delayed project, which is estimated to cost around £291-million, was originally planned to be finished by 2028.

As announced last year, the hospital will now be in a new location away from the centre of the Treliske site as originally mooted. It will now be built on the site of the current visitor car park and extend to the current main hospital entrance at the Trelawny wing. The buildings will be connected on the second floor.

Ms O’Keeffe said: “The women and children’s hospital’s updated concept design is almost ready to reveal. We’ve been working with our clinical teams and key stakeholders to make sure the updated design aligns with the national New Hospital Programme’s mandated guidelines – the biggest change being the requirement for 100 per cent single rooms, all of them ensuite.”

She advised that the lost parking spaces would be provided elsewhere and that RCH will have a new main entrance.

“Our main construction partner has been appointed. It is Willmott Dixon who are currently building the Emergency Care Department at University Hospitals Plymouth (Derriford),” she added. “We look forward to working with them and we envisage a lot of local construction and supply chain businesses in Cornwall benefiting from working alongside Willmott Dixon.

“This new hospital will be modern and spacious and will make use of lots of digital technology. For example, the building will be more energy efficient, secure and easier to navigate (light and heat sensors / airlock doors / digital wayfinding).

“Patients and staff will also benefit from simple yet highly effective innovations like silencing our call bells, biometric entry points on wards and patient-centred ordering. We are already successfully testing a number of solutions which other new hospitals are now looking to include in theirs.”

Ms O’Keeffe added that RCHT is working with the national New Hospital Programme team to do everything possible to keep to the construction timelines.

“Between now and then, we have to develop more detailed designs for the new hospital, ensure all planning permissions are granted, have our full business case approved at the very highest level of government and make sure all our suppliers are lined up and ready to go. We have needed a new women and children’s hospital for more than 20 years – it now feels very real.”

In a video posted a year ago, Roberta Fuller, programme director for the new hospital project, said the change of location was due to feedback from the market that it was ‘highly risky’ to be constructing a main building right in the centre of a hospital site, would be more expensive and likely to be disruptive to the day to day running of the hospital.