The new £430 million hospital for Bristol and the surrounding areas, at Southmead Hospital, has been officially handed over to North Bristol NHS Trust by developers Carillion.
The Trust will now begin the installation of equipment and stocking of the new state-of-the-art Brunel building at Southmead Hospital Bristol, in preparation for the first patients to move across from existing wards and clinics at Southmead Hospital on May 12.
The Accident and Emergency Department at Frenchay will close at 2am on Monday, May 19 and will immediately re-open at the Brunel building.
Following this wards and patients from Frenchay Hospital will move across.
The new building will be fully open and operational on Wednesday, May 28.
Specialist children’s services based at Frenchay Hospital will move to the Bristol Children’s Hospital on May 7 as part of long term plans to centralise children’s services in the city. As part of this, children’s accident and emergency services will also move to the Children’s Hospital on this date.
Andrea Young, Chief Executive of North Bristol NHS Trust, said: “Today marks an important step in providing world-class facilities for our patients across Bristol, South Gloucestershire and further afield. Southmead Hospital Bristol will be a centre of excellence, not only with those services based within the new Brunel building, but also our other clinical areas such as maternity, pathology and breast care.
“The Brunel building will dramatically improve privacy and dignity for patients with single rooms, en-suite facilities and a dedicated route through the hospital which means they do not have to be taken past members of the public before or after their operations.
“Our highly skilled teams from Frenchay Hospital will be moving to Southmead Hospital including the major trauma centre, accident and emergency, neurosciences, plastics and adult burns.
“They will be joining our great services already based at Southmead Hospital including orthopaedics and renal and transplant. So it really will be a case of brand new hospital, same familiar and trusted faces.”
Keith Hutton, Project Director for Carillion, said: “We are delighted to be handing over this state-of-the-art hospital which will help transform healthcare for people in and around Bristol."
Members of the public are being given the chance to visit the new Brunel building at a public preview day on Saturday, April 26 from 10am-4pm.
Places are limited and will be allocated by ballot. To apply for a space, email northbristol@nhs.net or telephone 0800 731 0319 by Friday, April 4. Participants will be informed by post or email if they have been successful.