On 22 September, an event was held at the upgraded Shoreham’s Southlands Hospital to celebrate bringing essential services closer to the community it serves. This saw speeches by Clinical director for Community Diagnostic Centres in West Sussex, Neil Cripps, and Jemma Deane, Community Diagnostic Centre manager. head of Radiology Services at UH Sussex, Caroline Davidson, and James Ramsden, Senior Project manager at Morgan Sindall Construction’s Southern Home Counties business, also attended.
Several pieces of specialist equipment have been successfully installed on site at Shoreham’s Southlands Hospital, including an MRI scanner, a CT scanner, two X-ray machines, and a chest X-ray system.
Procured through the Pagabo framework, Morgan Sindall has worked alongside Ward Williams Associates and architect, Crowther Associates, to refit and reconfigure underutilised areas of the facility, improving the West Sussex hospital’s operational efficiency. The improvement works will increase the hospital’s capabilities, and help provide earlier diagnoses for the local community. It is part of the UK Government’s pledge to launch 40 new community diagnostic centres (CDCs) across England, with a target of providing around 2.8 million scans in their first full year of operation.
Using its Intelligent Solutions approach, Morgan Sindall said the team ‘innovatively designed and installed’ removable sections of the RF cage walls to the MRI suite to enable access for future replacement and improvement strategies. This will offer the Trust flexibility for the long-term future, while minimising disruption to other essential services. As part of the project, the team welcomed a group of T-Level students, providing them with first-hand experience in construction.
Neil Cripps said: “Our Patient First strategy aligns all services working in the Trust to our True North objectives. The patient has to be at the heart of everything we do, and our services must be sustainable. The Community Diagnostic Centre provides the perfect training environment, which will promote our recruitment and retention of the best people. Having a dedicated, purpose-built unit will ensure we can deliver the best quality service to our patients. Now we have the centre in operation, we will be working with our primary care colleagues to develop suitable direct access pathways to enable our patients to access the right care at the right time.”