A Brighton hospital has applied to keep a temporary building for an extra 18 months due to delays in relocating a radiopharmacy unit to the newest building.
The Royal Sussex County Hospital gained planning permission for a major three-stage development in 2013, which included erecting a temporary building to house services while the new Louisa Martindale Building was constructed.
A new radiopharmacy unit has not yet been able to move into the Louisa Martindale Building due to complex radiation safety requirements.
The University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust has applied to continue using the Hanbury Building while the new radiopharmacy unit, expected to be completed in late 2024, is finished and the old unit is decommissioned.
The trust has told Brighton and Hove News that the progress of this move has had no impact on the timescales for the proposed Sussex Cancer Centre.
The latest application’s covering letter says: “Radiopharmacy is of specialist clinical nature, involving the preparation of radioactive materials for patient administration and is used to diagnose and treat several specific diseases.
“Given this, the trust is unable to stop or relocate this service from the existing Hanbury Building until a suitable alternative has begun operating.”
The Hanbury Building, in Eastern Road, is a temporary six-storey modular building which was to be erected to provide space for hospital services to be relocated while the Louisa Martindale Building was constructed.
The 18-month temporary permission would enable the trust time for decontamination and isolation of the unit as well as time to empty the Hanbury Building and remove the modular building.
University Hospitals Sussex said: “A radiopharmacy suite needs to maintain its environment within extremely tight parameters and, because of radiation safety and specific pharmaceutical requirements, moving the unit is a complex task with a rigorous and extensive clinical commissioning process.
“As a precaution, we have applied to extend our planning approval for the building to ensure this can be done as safely and effectively as possible.”
The first stage of the hospital development programme, construction of the Hanbury Building, suffered from delays due to funding from the Department of Health.
The Louisa Martindale Building opened to patients last June and the trust is now seeking to progress the construction of the stage 2 building, a cancer centre serving patients across Sussex.
The trust hopes to start building work on the cancer centre, next to the Hanbury Building, this year and to complete the work by or in 2027.
The trust said that it will have a “clearer view” of a timescale for the programme of works on the proposed Sussex Cancer Centre after the Barry Building has been demolished and the site cleared.
Previous permission for the temporary building expired on the building’s eighth anniversary, on Saturday 26 February 2022.
To read the whole application on the council’s website, visit the planning portal and search for BH2024/00146.
Keep the building if not getting in way of new build.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a no brainer, this one. Can’t not have this facility running, for obvious reasons.