First look at new home for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital

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• published: 01 Oct 2015
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First look at new home for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital • Children’s designs inspire Europe’s first hospital in a park. • £250m scheme includes a brand new state of the art hospital along with a dedicated research, education and innovation facility. Alder Hey Children’s Hospital will start its move into a brand new state of the art facility tomorrow. The new ‘Alder Hey in the Park’ will feature a uniquely designed children’s hospital alongside a dedicated children’s research and innovation facility, creating a leading-edge Centre for children’s healthcare and research. The entire hospital will relocate during a five day move from 2nd to 6th October. The new state-of-the-art hospital within ‘Alder Hey in the Park’, has been inspired and designed with the help of children and young people. It will have 270 beds, including 48 critical care beds for patients in ICU, HDU and Burns, together with 16 digitally enhanced operating theatres. The majority of children and their families will have their own room and en-suite facilities; with each ward equipped with its own kitchen providing freshly cooked food to order. Europe’s only hospital in a park, the unique design of the building will provide a pleasant healing environment for children and young people. Almost all bedrooms have park views and patients will have easy access to play areas on and outside their ward. Alder Hey’s old buildings will be demolished and replaced by parkland, leaving a new hospital sitting in the heart of Springfield Park, with views of green space or parkland from every patient’s window. The designs for the new world class facility have been inspired by children. Over 900 young people taking part in the initial consultation; with one patient, Eleanor Brogan, inspiring the architects final design with her drawing. Alder Hey in the Park has been designed to meet the expectations of patients who wanted to be looked after in a place that was fun, helped them recover quickly and most importantly didn’t look like a hospital. A Children and Young People’s Design Group have continued to have their say throughout the design process on everything from the colour of their room, to the artwork displayed in the new hospital and what the wards should look like. Alongside the new hospital, Alder Hey has also built an innovative Research and Education Facility. The new facility will place Alder Hey and Liverpool as a national and international leader in the development of safer and more effective medicines for children and young people. The new facility will allow researchers and clinicians to work with industry to develop safer, better medicines and therapies for children to use in the NHS and throughout the world. Alder Hey Children’s Charity is helping to transform this NHS hospital into a world-class facility. The Charity has already raised over £20m towards the new hospital, providing lifesaving equipment, funding for vital research and patient experience initiatives. Alder Hey Children’s Charity continues to raise much needed funds to create a truly patient friendly environment and support cutting edge innovation and research. Alder Hey is one of the UK and Europe’s largest children’s hospitals and celebrated its centenary last year. During its 101 year history, the hospital has led the way in a number of significant medical breakthroughs and advancements including being the first hospital to test Penicillin, saving a child from pneumonia in 1944; the first hospital to establish a neonatal unit in the UK; the first to cure the UK’s most commonly encountered congenital heart defect; as well as pioneering various splints and appliances including the Thomas Splint. The move to the new building has been meticulously planned over the past 18 months to ensure a safe and smooth transition for Alder Hey patients and their families. All non-emergency activity during the move to the new hospital will be reduced. However, the hospital’s Emergency Department will remain open, officially relocating to its new home in the early hours of Sunday 4th October. As a specialist hospital, Alder Hey currently provides 275,000 episodes of care to children and young people every year as one of Europe’s biggest and busiest centres of excellence for children with cancer, heart, spinal and brain disease. Watch this video for a sneak peak of the new Alder Hey hospital’s state of the art facilities.