Making the clinical case for our new hospital

A message from Sharon McNally, chief nurse and deputy chief executive To help form our clinical case for our new hospital, we facilitated a visit around our hospital site with the New Hospital Programme (NHP) team on 23 February.

The visit was an opportunity for us to be honest with the NHP team about the challenging conditions of our ageing estate and why those conditions make it even harder for us to maintain high quality care for our patients every day.

Feedback included: "The pungent smell is still coming through the shower drain - so much so that I cannot shower" - patient feedback

Throughout the visit, many of our people shared their experiences and challenges they face whilst caring for our patients because of the current environment. Thank you for your honesty and candour, it was important that we showed the NHP team what life is really like working at PAHT.

"When your estate constrains your decisions in developing the clinical model, rather than the other way around, you always have to make compromises that don't put patients first and make it difficult to deliver the high-quality care that we are here for." - Dr

Fay Gilder, medical director

The NHP team will use the visit to inform the development of the New Hospital Programme pre-consultation business case that will eventually go to the Treasury for decision. We will keep you updated.

My thanks again to everyone who took part in the visit - it was a really important moment to show first-hand why we so desperately need our new hospital.