Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, along with community and mental health services in Somerset, is one of 21 organisations expected to benefit from the Department of Health and Social Care’s hospital building programme, with potential funding of £450m.
The next steps of the Trust’s ambitious plan – called Musgrove 2030 – will include a new maternity and children’s building and further development of its cancer and emergency services.
This comes in addition to a new surgical centre, acute assessment hub, therapies department and maternity refurbishments at the hospital, which are already underway.
Peter Lewis, chief executive of Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Our focus is to provide the very best care that we can to the people of Somerset. For many people that means ensuring that we support people to stay as well as possible and have the right services in place to support them in the community.”
“We have an exciting vision to transform healthcare for patients in the county and we want to develop state-of-the-art facilities that support our excellent clinical and non-clinical teams to further improve the outstanding care they provide to our patients.”
David Shannon, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust’s director of strategic development, said: “We already have plans in place to replace parts of the 1940s buildings at Musgrove Park Hospital with modern facilities.”
“This additional funding will give us the opportunity to look at our remaining outdated estate and create a state-of-the-art hospital in Taunton.”
“We are talking to our clinicians to develop plans that will enable us to create further facilities that match the care that we provide and give us an opportunity to improve care further.”
Preparations for building work has already started in a number of areas of the hospital, including:
Surgical Centre
Plans are in place and on track to build a £80 million surgical centre at Musgrove Park Hospital that will include state-of-the-art operating theatres, a critical care unit and an endoscopy suite.
Enabling building works have already begun to clear the site so that building work can begin in 18 months’ time.
In total the new surgical centre will provide:
- Six endoscopy rooms, patient recovery and clinical support areas
- Eight operating theatres (including two interventional radiology theatres), recovery areas and clinical support.
- 22 critical care beds, all specified for level 2 and 3 critical care patients
Acute Assessment Hub
Plans are also in place to develop a £11.5 million acute assessment hub adjacent to the hospital’s emergency department (A&E) to support care for patients requiring emergency treatment.
It will include an admission hub for those patients who need to be admitted to hospital for additional care and a unit for those patients who require emergency treatment that can be delivered on the same day, without the need to be admitted to hospital overnight.
The current surgical admissions unit is located in World War II ‘Nightingale’ style ward accommodation that is unsuitable for modern standards of care and is some distance from the surgical operating theatres. In the future, it will be included in the acute assessment hub, adjacent to the emergency department.
Therapies Department
A brand new purpose-built therapies department is being developed to house the hospital’s physiotherapy, occupational therapy and orthotics teams, as well as an examination suite, rehabilitation kitchen and gym space.
Updating the maternity unit
While the Trust considers how it may redevelop the maternity unit at Musgrove Park Hospital for future generations, it is refurbishing the current maternity facilities, which are expected to reopen in autumn this year.
