New hospital is nearly ready to open its doors!

The keys to the long awaited South Bristol NHS Community Hospital have now been handed over to NHS Bristol, marking the end of two years of building and construction work. The next few weeks will be a busy time for the South Bristol Community Hospital Implementation team, led by one of our very own members of staff who is managing and leading the team. Now spending much of their time on site at the hospital, the team will arrange the receipt, checking and installation of equipment, furniture and medical supplies to ensure everything is in place when the hospital opens its doors in just a few weeks time.

From outside the hospital looks impressively modern and state of the art whilst also being complimentary to nature, with different varieties of trees planted around the perimeter of the building. Cheerful lighting by the entrance comes to life in the evening when an array of different colours are projected onto the underside of the roof. This interesting and calming feature was created as part of the public arts programme. Inside the hospital a contemporary look is continued and the different colours used to distinguish between departments and assist with way finding make the interior feel warm and welcoming.

South Bristol NHS Community Hospital is expected to be visited by 145,000 patients a year and will save an estimated 80,000 journeys a year into Bristol city centre. Services at the hospital will be provided by a range of providers, here is a list of what will be available and who the providers are:

The first service to open its doors to patients will be our Urgent Care Centre which will replace the Walk-In Centre at Knowle West. Due to open on 30^th March the Urgent Care Centre will be staffed by experienced nurses and will have access to x-ray equipment, making it able to deal with a wider range of minor injuries and episodes of illness. Other services at the hospital are expected to open in a phased approach throughout April.