Great Western Hospital

Story

the Great Western Hospital is a large hospital situated in Swindon, Wiltshire, England, next to junction 15 of the M4 motorway run by the Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.BuildingThe architect was Whicheloe Macfarlane, who designed the hospital with a concrete frame design. Flat slab concrete floors deep are supported by a nominal square grid of concrete columns. The outside of the building is covered in of cream coloured precast concrete cladding panels which each weigh 14 tonnes and span 7x. They attempt to replicate the appearance of Wiltshire stone. There are six floors comprising a total of of floor space.The hospital was one of the first to be built under the Private Finance Initiative at a cost of £148 m, with Carillion as the lead contractor.OpeningThe hospital opened in 2002 to replace the services previously provided at the Princess Margaret Hospital, which had served the town since 1959. It was formally opened by HRH Prince Philip on 28 February 2003.FacilitiesThe facilities at the hospital include an accident and emergency department which sees approximately 77,000 patients per year, an Acute Assessment Unit, a twelve bedded intensive care / high dependency unit, an intermediate care centre on site, a health and social care education centre called the academy, and a wide range of wards and clinics, including 400 in-patient beds, serving approximately 300,000 people.