Construction is underway on a new four-storey Department of Critical Care (DCC) at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, which will provide additional capacity for patients requiring intensive and high dependency care.
The new facility is being built between the hospital’s Tower Block and Gallery Wing and will include 24 critical care beds when it opens, with space within the design to expand capacity to 36 beds in the future.
Delivered by Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the project will replace existing critical care accommodation with a purpose-built environment featuring updated clinical spaces, infrastructure and support facilities.
The Trust said the new layout will improve the way teams work across the department and help reduce the need to move patients between different areas of the hospital.
The new facility will also include specialist isolation rooms with dedicated ventilation systems, improved facilities for families including a lounge and private discussion areas, enhanced accessibility, and upgraded staff spaces such as changing facilities, meeting rooms and wellbeing areas.
The new building will support the Trust’s existing critical care model, which operates across both Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and Cheltenham General Hospital, with the development not expected to change how services are delivered across the two sites.
The project is being delivered while the hospital remains operational, with construction activity managed to minimise disruption to patients, visitors and staff.
The new Department of Critical Care will also support the phased decant of the hospital’s Tower Block, allowing fire safety improvement works to progress floor by floor over the coming years.
Construction is underway and is expected to take approximately three years to complete.
"The new Department of Critical Care will provide a state-of-the-art unit for some of our most vulnerable patients and help ensure we can meet the needs of both today's population and future generations,” said Kevin McNamara, Chief Executive at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The critical care development is being delivered alongside wider infrastructure upgrades at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, including improvements to the site’s energy resilience.
A separate planning application approved by Gloucester City Council will see the hospital’s energy centre upgraded with replacement standby generators and associated infrastructure to increase backup power capacity and support future expansion of the site.
