Construction set to start soon on new £30m hospital in Berwick

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is preparing to hand over the site where the new hospital will be built to its main construction partner, Cramlington-based Merit Health.

This follows the completion of the first phase of demolition and archaeology work.

Meanwhile, as we revealed earlier this year, talks continue on the potential for new services being added at Berwick and enhancing existing services.

The existing hospital building at Berwick Infirmary that currently has a much-reduced footprint and the maternity unit, which is now also home to physiotherapy, will be demolished once the new hospital is built.

Inpatient and other services including minor injuries, oncology and outpatients continue to be provided from the hospital.

Around 60 clinics are currently delivered from the infirmary every month and 50 consultants help to deliver this patient care, alongside the team that are based at the hospital.

Northumbria Healthcare’s executive director of nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals, Marion Dickson, said: “Delivering appropriate patient care as close to home as possible is a top priority for us in Berwick and we are committed to ensuring that we provide as many services as we can from our fantastic new hospital.

“I am so excited that we are soon to begin the construction phase. It means a huge amount to me too as a resident of Berwick to see this work progressing.

“We are currently in discussions about bringing new services to the hospital and further enhancing existing services including gynaecology, colposcopy, urology, audiology and ophthalmology. We are also delighted to be bringing endoscopy services back to Berwick and in preparation for this are currently training more nurse endoscopists.

“We know that many patients would welcome additional services and it would significantly reduce the miles that our patients would need to travel. This is so important for sustainability too.

“The last two years have shown us that we can deliver excellent patient care in different ways and technology and telemedicine play a big part of this. For example, a patient could see a nurse at Berwick and discuss their treatment with a consultant at another site virtually.

“We also continue to work closely with our GPs in the local area and other healthcare colleagues to understand what additional services we should consider or what enhancements to services we should make. I want to assure people that we are working very hard to ensure we deliver as much patient care from Berwick as we can.

“Again, I thank our wonderful staff for all their hard work and efforts. An important part of this project is also to ensure that our staff have a much better environment to work in and that they have the facilities they need to support their well-being while at work.”

The design of the hospital is currently being finalised, in line with current planning consent.

Work on site will run parallel with work being carried out to manufacture the pre-assembled modules and ‘PODs’ at Merit Health’s factory in Cramlington. The initial work on site will include ground works, installing drainage and laying foundations.

It is expected that Merit Health will begin off-site manufacturing work before Christmas and that preparation work on site will begin then too.