A multi-million pound extension to Gobowen’s orthopaedic hospital has been given the green light in a move health bosses say will help bring down waiting lists.
Four new operating theatres will be provided in a three-storey building to be constructed near the main entrance to the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital.
The scheme has been granted approval by Shropshire Council less than three months after the application was lodged, with planners saying it will provide a boost to the area and help address patient backlogs caused by the Covid pandemic.
Plans show the new theatres will be located on the first floor, along with recovery beds, allowing them to be linked to the existing theatres.
The ground floor will be ‘shell’ space to allow for future expansion of the hospital’s clinical space, with plant space provided on the second floor.
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A report by case officer Mark Perry says the council would have preferred for the new building to be located elsewhere within the site, rather than directly in front of the more modern and “visually attractive” additions constructed in the last few years.
However it acknowledges that the need for it to be linked to the existing theatre area.
The report says: “The additional clinical space proposed will help to meet current demand, minimising disruption to the existing theatres and helping to address the backlog in specialist operations to reduce waiting times.
“It is considered that the principle of an extension to the well renowned hospital is acceptable.
“The enhancement and expansion of medical facilities would provide economic and social benefits to the area.
“It is unfortunate that the extension is proposed to the front of what is one of the more attractive and modern façades of the existing hospital complex.
“However, it is recognised that for operational reasons the new theatres need to linked to the existing theatre accommodation which in turn severely limits options for alternative locations within the wider site.
“Whilst it would be preferable for the extension to be located elsewhere on the site for visual amenity reasons it is accepted that it has to be in the location proposed to meet the functional needs of the trust.”
The report says the new building will significantly reduce the green “buffer” between the hospital and the road, but concedes that a proposed landscaping scheme will help mitigate this.
The report concludes: “The applicant has sought to create a design and scale of building that to a large extent recognises and replicates the architectural language of the previous hospital extension which will become hidden by the extension now proposed.”
A design and access statement submitted on behalf of the hospital trust said funding had already been secured for the new building. Once the new theatres are in operation, the statement said trust plans to renovate four existing theatres.
The new facilities are being built as an extension to the existing theatre block at the hospital, which itself cost £15 million and was only opened in 2017.
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