Staff from the RUH’s pathology department and mortuary will start transferring over to their new purpose-built facility next week, in a move that will see the existing facility demolished.
The new £12m pathology lab and mortuary, designed by IBI Nightingales architects and built by local building firm Kier SW, will provide the RUH with a first class facility finished to a very high specification.
The move will continue throughout May, with the most acute services transferring over in early-June. It is anticipated that the new lab will be fully operational by mid-June.
Laboratory staff have been working together with the project team on coordinating the phased move and specialist movers will transfer the bulk of the equipment.
Howard Jones, Director of Estates and Facilities said: “It’s a building we can all be proud of, providing an excellent working environment for the 120+ staff who will be transferring over from the old buildings.
“The new lab boasts considerable improvements in terms of both its layout and equipment, and the repositioning of the lab will enable services to run much more smoothly and efficiently. The onus has been on how the new lab could better serve the rest of the hospital and how, in turn, this could help speed up turnaround times for analysis of samples – which will have a positive impact on patient care.”
Key improvements include:
- Sensitively designed bereavement suite with private garden;
- Spacious mortuary with new refrigerated stores, and autopsy theatre with observation gallery;
- Large open-plan labs with a mix of existing, upgraded and new equipment;
- Flexible and fully adaptable working spaces with innovate custom-designed features;
- Closer proximity to the rest of the hospital – with improved connections to operating theatres and the emergency department.
Originally built in the 1930s to house injured US servicemen, the old lab was no longer fit to accommodate the large and expensive analysis equipment used by the department.
The demolition of the old pathology lab will create space for a new patient/visitor car park and will mark the start of an exciting new phase of development for the north section of the RUH site, which will include the building of the new Cancer Centre.
