Lanchester Road Hospital Briefing July 2006

This briefing is composed of information gleamed from the meeting of the project group for the Lanchester Road Hospital on 30th June 2006. Lanchester Road is the name for the new hospital being built on the Earl’s House site just outside Durham City. The name was suggested in a competition by Bob Kelly (vice chair of SURF) who won a C.D. player for his winning suggestion. The project group is where stakeholders in the project both internal (staff of the Tees, Esk & Wear Valleys Trust) and external (service user groups, the Patient Public Involvement Forum and Primary Care Representatives) meet to discuss the development of the hospital project.

News from this meeting:

1. A psychiatric Intensive Care Unit is part of the design of the hospital; however Pauline Craig is currently undertaking a review of psychiatric intensive care provision across the whole of the mental health trust (the Tees, Esk & Wear Valleys NHS Trust). It is not as yet clear when this review will be complete but as yet this has not impacted on the development of the Lanchester Road hospital. We will keep you updated on any developments.

2. 3 groups of contractors have been invited to tender for the contract to build the hospital. They are due to submit tenders by the 26th of July, they will present their schemes on 10th August after which there will be a period in which the 3 submissions are evaluated. As members of the project team and design group we will be involved in this process.

3. A new requirement has emerged since this scheme was first put forward, the government office responsible for Private Finance Initiatives schemes such as this now require the Trust to present an advanced business case as a risk reduction tool. This must happen before the Trust decide which bid they prefer and will take 4 to 6 weeks to go through the approval process.



4. The Trust have already gone out to tender on enabling works for the site of the new hospital; these include improvements to the access to the site from Trout’s Lane, improvements to the roads around the site to enable construction and improved site usage when the hospital is built. The enabling works also include work on two new car parks and potential for a bus stop-off point within the site which would ease access for those of us who depend on public transport.

5. Future of the County Hospital site – the Trust plans to sell this site and is looking to get planning permission for a developer to build houses or a hotel, this would enable the Trust to obtain maximum value for the site (though in the main this money goes to the Strategic Health Authority rather than the mental health trust).

We hope to make these quick briefings a regular feature so please let me know if you have any concerns about the project, questions you would like asked or information you would like to have.
Contact details below.