Take one look at the two main buildings at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and it is immediately clear why they need to go.

The Jubilee and Barry buildings were built before Florence Nightingale was touring the wards and are cramped, dilapidated and no longer suitable for 21st century healthcare.

It costs millions of pounds to simply keep them up to a basic standard but it is a case of throwing good money after bad.

In the past financial year, hospital managers ended up with a repair bill backlog of £17.6 million and have had to employ a full-time maintenance worker to patrol both buildings daily to carry out vital repairs and patch-up jobs to keep them safe and usable for patients, staff and visitors.

The cramped ward areas also increase the risk of cross infection between patients and also means the hospital struggles to meet the high standards of privacy and dignity each patient deserves.

If the hospital is to continue to expand and develop its services then it needs the right buildings to do so.

The possibility of a change of Government next year must not be allowed to get in the way of that.

Whether Gordon Brown’s administration remains in power, or David Cameron’s Tories take over, investment in the Royal Sussex remains a priority for Brighton and Hove – even if there are drastic cutbacks in public spending by the Government because of the struggling economy.

Plans for a redevelopment of the hospital have been mooted for years but now, following a decision by the SHA to give the go-ahead, things are finally starting to take shape.

The £420 million plans include ripping down the two old buildings and replacing them with the latest facilities, including a helicopter pad to bring in critically ill patients.

The Hurstwood Park neurosciences centre, currently based at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, will also eventually make the move to Brighton.

Specialist

The long-term aim is to make the Royal Sussex a major specialist centre, treating not just patients from Brighton and Hove and the rest of Sussex but other parts of the South East as well.

Once the buildings are in place there will be more room for developing non-surgical cancer services so more patients across Sussex can get chemotherapy and radiotherapy services closer to where they live.

One of the objections raised to the plans by residents is that the site is already overdeveloped and attracting more patients to the area will cause traffic and congestion problems.

However, there is enough room for the building – the site has simply been badly designed over the years.

Car parking is an issue, however, and one that will be looked at in closer detail in the months and years to come.

The Argus has reported several times the problems that visitors to the Royal Sussex have in finding car parking spaces, particularly when two parking attendants, who used to help filter traffic through the hospital grounds, were taken away.

But these have now been replaced and hospital managers are confident they will help ease the situation.

The hospital intends to include extra car parking spaces in any planning application but there will also have to be more of a focus on alternative schemes, such as park and ride.

For hospital chief executive Duncan Selbie, the main focus now is to get the building up and running while continuing to run a major hospital.

In a statement to staff this week, he said the need to modernise the hospital was “overwhelming”.

He said: “It will replace some of the oldest buildings in the NHS and bring our specialist and trauma services together to treat the most seriously ill and injured patients.

“I am delighted to say the outline business case for the modernisation programme has been approved.

“Modern facilities will not, in themselves, assure a high quality of care and patient experience but without them we are hindered and hampered at every stage.”

Mr Selbie said the issue of parking was also being examined.

He added: “Over the past two weeks, two new parking attendants have been taken on to help manage traffic into and out of the county’s multi-storey car park.

“They replace previous attendants supplied by an external contractor, which is a smarter use of public money.

“Unfortunately, our car parks are just not big enough for the number of people coming into the hospital, which is why our redevelopment plans include providing extra spaces for patients, visitors and staff.”

There is still a long way to go yet.

Approval

The hospital needs to win official approval from the Department of Health to go ahead with its plans and obtain central funding instead of through a private finance initiative deal.

It will also need to submit planning applications to Brighton and Hove City Council for every stage.

In the long term there is going to be a lot of disruption because the hospital will need to juggle building work and patients as the project continues.

The award-winning Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital, which was built on the Royal Sussex site, shows it can be done, and by the end of it all, in a few years’ time, Brighton and Hove should have a hospital that puts it truly on the map.