Regional health chiefs approve £420m Brighton hospital project

Plans to spend £420 million modernising Brighton’s biggest hospital have moved a step closer.

NHS South of England, the strategic health authority, has approved the “outline business case” for the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Eastern Road.

It wrote to every NHS organisation in Sussex and received 100 per cent support for the proposals which will see cramped 19th century wards replaced with bigger and more spacious buildings.

Hospital chief executive Duncan Selbie described the latest approval, given on Thursday (29 March), as a crucial milestone.

Mr Selbie is chief executive of Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Royal Sussex.

He said: “This is such a vote of confidence in our future. Our plans now pass to the Department of Health and we expect to have approval in May.”

Millions of pounds of government money will be released if the Department of Health accepts the plans and this will be spent moving staff to nearby premises so demolition work can begin.

Final approval is expected to come from the Treasury in the autumn.

The project, which won planning permission from Brighton and Hove City Council in January, is expected to take almost ten years to complete.

Mr Selbie said that the scheme would modernise medical services and the care of the elderly and create a brand new cancer treatment centre.

It would also bring specialist neurological doctors and nurses to Brighton from Haywards Heath to work alongside other regional services and the new major trauma centre.

And it would support the work that has taken place in turning the Royal Sussex into a major teaching hospital.