Ceremony marks start of work to build new hospital in Bournemouth

A ceremony has taken place to mark the start of work to build a new hospital in Dorset.

After months of demolition work, the construction of the redesigned Royal Bournemouth Hospital is now underway.

The project is part of the £250 million reorganisation of healthcare in east Dorset.

The main entrance to the Royal Bournemouth Hospital has been demolished, pulled down and cleared, ready for the new structure to be built in its place. 

It will be six storeys high providing a new maternity unit, children's unit, accident and department and critical care unit.

Isabel Smith, Medical Director said: "This is going to enable us to create a bespoke environment for great quality care but also patient experience.

"When we think about quality of care we often think about treatment pathways but patient experience is very important too and the buildings will enable that."

The main change for patients is that the regions main accident and emergency department will now be in Bournemouth, with Poole Hospital a centre for planned treatment.

However, over the years there has been huge opposition to the move, mainly from people living on the Isle of Purbeck, like in Wareham.

Campaigners claimed that longer ambulance journeys to Bournemouth will put lives at risk.

Richard Renaut, University Hospitals Dorset said: "The ambulance service, ourselves, all the experts who have looked at this, all the public views and the judicial review all concluded this is safer.

"So it's far better to get to a hospital in an ambulance and receive the full range of services rather than what we have currently got which is really great teams but split across two sites."

This is the biggest investment in health service in Dorset for more than 30 years and both sites in Poole and Bournemouth will be open in 2024.