Forth Valley Royal Hospital

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Forth Valley Royal Hospital is a hospital located in Larbert, Scotland. With 860 inpatient beds, 25 wards, and 16 operating theatres, it was Scotland's largest ever NHS construction project at the time but has been surpassed by the New Southern General hospital amongst others. Built at a cost of £300 million on the site of the old Royal Scottish National Hospital, it opened to its first patients in 2010. It is operated by NHS Forth Valley.The hospital is the first in Scotland to have a Forestry Commission ranger on site, whose job is to encourage the use of the 70acre grounds formerly belonging to the Larbert House estate. It has Scotland's first fully robotic pharmacy, in which robots dispense and label medicines. The hospital also employs robots to carry out tasks such as removing waste, delivering food to wards, and cleaning operating theatres.BackgroundThe Forth Valley Royal Hospital was designed by Equion, a subsidiary of Laing O'Rourke, and Keppie Designs in cooperation with builders Laing O'Rourke. After a consultation process in 2003, involving 5,600 local residents, it was decided that a new acute hospital should be built to replace the ageing facilities at Stirling Royal Infirmary and Falkirk Royal Infirmary, which were to become community hospitals.At the time of construction the hospital was Scotland's largest ever NHS construction project, cost £300 million to build, most of which was provided by a private finance initiative arrangement; it was built on the site of the old Royal Scottish National Hospital. Originally to be called Forth Valley Hospital, it was granted royal status by Queen Elizabeth II, becoming Forth Valley Royal Hospital. It was hoped the new hospital would be ready by 2009, but medical services did not start to be transferred until August 2010, when the first patients were admitted. The process was completed in June 2011, and the queen officially opened the hospital on 6 July 2011.