Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS FT’s (GHC) Stroud General Hospital will benefit from a £2m refurbishment. This is to modernise the Victorian building.
The Jubilee Ward and the Minor Injuries and Illness Unit (MIIU) – which are both located in part of the original hospital – will be completely redesigned and refitted in a four-month project expected to begin on Monday 23 August.
The hospital is a historic building, formally opening in December 1875, which extended in 1890, with the Memorial Stone for Stroud Hospital being laid in 1874.
Angela Potter, Director of Strategy and Partnerships at GHC, said: “We’re delighted to announce this important piece of work to modernise a large area of Stroud Hospital, which will ensure it will remain a key resource for healthcare for years to come.
"As always we are indebted to Stroud Hospitals League of Friends for their support of this project and for a substantial contribution towards the overall cost.”
The refurbishment will change the room layouts in order to:
- Create larger MIIU consulting and treatment rooms, separated assessment bays, including one for isolation, a new MIIU children’s waiting and treatment area, new MIIU reception area, and add air handling and temperature control to the unit, as well as piped medical gases to the beds.
- Remodel Jubilee Ward bays with improved bed separation, toilet, and shower facilities, create two larger single rooms with en-suite facilities, add a ward office and move the reminiscence room onto the ward, replace windows and implement air handling and temperature control, and install piped medical gases to the beds.
Roma Walker, Chair of the Stroud Hospitals League of Friends, said: “We are delighted to be contributing to work which will transform key areas of the hospital for both patients and staff.
“These are exciting and timely plans, and we look forward to welcoming patients and visitors to the new-look ward and Minor Injuries unit in a few months.”
The hospital has already received huge investments, including a major refurbishment on their Cashes Green Ward in 2018, and the £5m development of Bowbridge Outpatients Unit and MIIU in 2000.
There have also been incremental upgrades to facilities such as an endoscopy refit, theatre extension and piped oxygen for some parts of the building.
However, the part of the hospital which includes the Jubilee Ward and the MIIU was not part of the modernisation, until now. The last significant improvement was the addition of shower rooms on the ward in 2012.
The MIIU treatment rooms are currently assessment bays which are too small to offer all-round access to trolleys, with little privacy if multiple bays are in use. This has proved challenging when having to isolate infectious patients.
Some other challenges for the hospital have included staff in the reception area not being able to see the patient waiting area, patient bathrooms, or the children’s waiting area.
The waiting area is part of the main thoroughfare through the hospital, with no windows, ventilation, or natural light. There are also no staff rest areas and very little office space. The modernisation hopes to solve some of these issues.
Patients on the 16-bed ward will be relocated to a temporary ward, which is currently being set up at Cirencester Hospital.
Unbooked visits to the MIIU will be unavailable to patients at the hospital during the refurbishment, but alternative service such as NHS 111, pharmacies or the MIIUs at Cirencester Hospital, or Vale Hospital in Dursley, will still operate.
The Stroud MIIU is expected to reopen in late December 2021, with the Jubilee Ward opening in January 2022.
