An extra 6,700 procedures will now be able to be carried out each year
The Princess Royal Surgical Centre at Southmead Hospital is officially open(Image: North Bristol NHS Trus)
A new surgical centre has opened at Southmead Hospital, which will allow 6,700 additional procedures to be carried out across Bristol hospitals each year.
The £49.9m Princess Royal Bristol Surgical Centre admitted its first patients in August but was officially opened earlier this month. The new facility has four operating theatres along with X-ray facilities, ‘medirooms’ where patients are admitted before surgery and for recovery and a 40-bed inpatient ward.
The surgical centre has been named in honour of Her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal. Her Highness was a patient at Southmead Hospital in June 2024, spending five nights there being treated for minor head injuries and concussion after being struck by a horse while walking on her Gatcombe Park estate in Gloucestershire.
The Princess Royal Surgical Centre at Southmead Hospital is officially open(Image: North Bristol NHS Trus)
The Princess Royal returned to Southmead to thank staff in February this year. The new building named after her is a joint project between North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT) and University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust, supported by Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) Integrated Care Board.
The first patient through the doors of the new building, the royally-named Keith Middleton, gave it a glowing review.
“It’s an amazing building, and as I was coming in I felt it didn’t have the feeling of a hospital, it’s a bit like a five-star hotel,” Mr Middleton — no relation of the current Princess of Wales — said. “It appears, from what I have seen, to be very relaxing.”
Keith Middleton, the first patient through the doors of the new facility, described it as ‘like a five star hotel’.(Image: North Bristol NHS Trus)
Anaesthetist Jo Adelaine has been both doctor and patient in the new building. She works at North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT), but underwent partial knee replacement surgery at the centre before working inside the building.
“I did a walkaround when the centre was being built, and it looked pretty impressive then, but it’s a thousand times better now that we are in here,” she said.
“The building is beautiful and the kit inside the building is great. It is fantastic that X-ray is right by the ward for post-op scanning. All the nurses and healthcare assistants here have been amazing, they can’t do enough for you.”
One of the new building’s four operating theatres(Image: North Bristol NHS Trus)
The purpose of the new building is to help ease the huge backlog of elective surgeries which built up during the pandemic.
Maria Kane, CEO Bristol NHS Group – the partnership between the two Bristol hospital trusts – said the new centre would greatly improve access to surgery for local patients.
“We are so proud to be offering surgery in this fantastic new facility to benefit local patients,” she said.
“This centre significantly increases our surgical capacity so that we can see more of our patients sooner and demonstrates what we can achieve by working together across Bristol and Weston.”