A newly built hospital on University College London Hospitals’ estate in Fitzrovia will treat its first patients this month as fitting out of the new clinical facility nears completion, say hospital managers.
The final stage of works at the new Grafton Way Building is nearly finished, with handover of the above ground floors due imminently, says UCLH in an email to local residents.
The shiny new building is on the site of the hospital’s former Rosenheim Wing and the Odeon Cinema at the corner of Grafton Way and Huntley Street, one of several recently redeveloped hospital sites clustered between Tottenham Court Road and Gower Street, and alongside a number of housing blocks.
The announcement will be good news for patients and also the hundreds of residents nearby who have had to endure years of noise and disruption from construction work.
UCLH says the new building “will house state-of-the-art equipment and facilities”.
Over the six storeys above ground there will be wards for blood disorder inpatients, short-stay surgical and critical care, and imaging facilities. In the four levels below ground there will be operating theatres and a large a new Proton Beam Therapy Centre.
“PBT is an advanced form of radiotherapy used for the treatment of complex and hard-to-treat cancers in children and adults,” says UCLH. It is currently being commissioned and will start treating patients later in 2021.
The completion of the new hospital comes at a very difficult time for UCLH staff as the number of patients being treated for Covid-19 has pushed wards to capacity.
University College Hospital Grafton Way Building, 1 Grafton Way, London WC1E 6AS.