Offsite specialist Darwin Group has started work at St Luke's Hospital in Bradford for a £19m surgical day case unit.
A breaking ground ceremony was held on Friday 1st September to mark the start of the project.
The new unit is expected to increase operations delivered by Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust by over 5,000 a year. And because most day cases will move to St Luke's, capacity will also be created to perform an additional 1,200 operations a year for normal planned surgery and day case surgery at Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI).
Located on the existing St Luke's site, the unit, funded by NHS England's Targeted Investment Fund (TIF), is expected to be operational in spring 2024.
Bradford Teaching Hospitals chief executive Mel Pickup said: "It's been great to see work get under way on this fantastic purpose-built day case unit, which will mean better facilities for our patients and colleagues and help us deliver our vision of providing outstanding care for our communities across Bradford.
"It has taken a lot of hard work, effort and dedication from many people to reach this point and the ground breaking event has marked a milestone in making the plans a reality."
Alan Davidson, Darwin Group's director of healthcare, said: "As specialists in offsite healthcare construction, we know that improving our NHS estates changes thousands of lives for the better – not only for the patients who are treated in them, but for the staff who work in them day in, day out. It's been great to see how excited they are about the project."
Source: Darwin starts work for Bradford hospital (theconstructionindex.co.uk)
