Health boss announces £250 million hospital revamp

The chief executive of Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust wants to bring the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton up to the same 21st century standards as the new Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital on the same site.

Duncan Selbie's aim is for the hospital to become a regional centre of excellence for heart, cancer, renal care and more.

Mr Selbie said: "The main issue we need to look at is the design and structure of any development and we will be working closely with organisations around Brighton and Hove to make sure we get it right.

"We need to ensure we come up with a design that has the confidence of people in Brighton and Hove. At the moment some of the buildings there are simply not good enough and need to change.

"Car parking and access is obviously an issue and we intend to include parking spaces in any development as well as work with the city council."

Areas in need of an upgrade include the Barry and Jubilee buildings and Mr Selbie said any design would take into account height and impact on the site.

Mr Selbie wants to get the project up and running within five years and it is likely to be paid for through a mixture of central government funding and a private finance initiative.

However the plans have attracted criticism from campaigners fighting to save hospital services in West Sussex.

A public consultation is being held which could lead to there being one major general hospital in the county instead of three.

Any cuts in hospitals such as Worthing could lead to thousands more patients coming into Brighton for urgent treatment.

Worthing campaigner said: "The consultation is still ongoing but there is already talk about the plans for the future redevelopment of the Royal Sussex.

"It seems minds have already been made up and these changes are going to go ahead."

The cuts could mean thousands more patients a year coming into Brighton for treatment.

Worthing hospital consultant Richard Venn said: "Basically, if Worthing Hospital is downgraded and the services re-provided at Brighton, it would require this building programme.

"So it would cost every resident in the Worthing Hospital catchment area nearly £1,000 to move services out of Worthing and re-provide them in Brighton.

"Surely this raises yet another question as to the value and benefit of making these massive changes.

"Kwash believes that Worthing is already a major general hospital providing a fantastic service to the local population.

"We would only need to grow by another ten per cent to meet the major general hospital model and the capital investment would be less than £20 million."

The redevelopment would tie in with an eventual transfer of the Hurstwood Park neurosciences centre from the grounds of the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath to the Royal Sussex, something which has been on the cards for more than a decade.

Mr Selbie said: "The main issue we need to look at is the design and structure of any development and we will be working closely with organisations around Brighton and Hove to make sure we get it right.

"The buildings there at the moment are simply not good enough and need to change.

Car parking and access is obviously an issue and we intend to include parking spaces in any development as well as work with the city council."

Mr Selbie insists the trust is also committed to the future of the Princess Royal, despite concerns about changes in services proposed as part of the continuing public consultation into the future of hospitals across West Sussex.

He said: "The Princess Royal is an essential part of the organisation and there is a big job for it to do. It is a busy hospital and there is a lot of work to be done."

Mr Selbie, 44, is married with three young sons and arrives at the hospital trust from a position at the Department of Health.

He has had previous experience as chief executive of NHS trusts and a Strategic Health Authority and relishes the challenge ahead.

The trust has had widely publicised problems such as its finances, MRSA rates and job cuts but Mr Selbie says it also has a lot of strengths.

He said: "Obviously we are not complacent and there are always improvements that need to be made but there is a lot that is good about this trust.

"The mortality rate here rates the trust among the top ten per cent and it is the fourth safest in the country when it comes to the quality and safety of the care it provides.

"It has excellent specialist services such as treatments for stroke patients.

"Its MRSA rates have been high ut there has been a tremendous amount of work done in this area and the number of cases have halved in the last year, "Any infection case is one too many but progress is good.

"We are constantly searching how to do things better. Plans are under way to expand the Trevor Mann baby unit so children do not have to go outside the county for neonatal care.

"However we always have to bear in mind that we need to live within our means. We have done well in the last year when it comes to making savings and should be approaching a break even position by the end of the financial year."

The trust has made savings in several ways but the most controversial was job cuts and a reduction in bed numbers, sparking a drop in staff morale.

Mr Selbie said: "There have been concerns about bed numbers but things are constantly changing when it comes to medical science and people are not having to stay in hospital for as long as they used to.

"Keyhole surgery on a knee, even a hysterectomy can be done as a day procedure which five years ago would never have been the case.

"People do not have to be in hospital for long. They don't want to be there and when they arrive they just want to leave again.

"There is concern about job losses for staff but there is no big redundancy programme planned. If we are looking at reducing numbers we will look again at our vacancies and changes will be marginal."

Mr Selbie said he also intended to develop the trust's status as a teaching hospital and its close links with the Brighton and Sussex Medical School.

He said: "We will keeping our focus on safe care and the high quality of treatment we give to our patients.

"There is no complacency and we know there is a lot of work to be done but there is a lot to be proud about in this hospital trust and it is time for that to be recognised."