Willmott Dixon has broken ground on the first of the Wave 1 New Hospital Programme projects.
Leaders from Willmott Dixon, key stakeholders and hospital staff gathered to celebrate the start of construction for the £140m Emergency Care Building at Derriford Hospital.
During the groundbreaking ceremony, long-serving ED volunteers symbolically cut the turf of the new site with ceremonial spades to mark the start of construction.
It marks the first Wave 1 scheme in the government’s New Hospital Programme to move into the main construction phase and is due to open by 2029.
Rob Woolcock, Director of Willmott Dixon, said: “This represents not just the beginning of a building, but the next step in enhancing the care and wellbeing of thousands of patients every year.”
The £140m emergency care building will replace the hospital’s current 50-year-old building, which operates as one of the busiest emergency departments in the South West and serves as the region’s major trauma centre.
The existing facility will be reconfigured to serve as a Paediatric ED.
Once completed, the new four-storey facility will offer twice the capacity of the existing facility and include new features— such as five new surgical theatres, improved staff workspaces and advanced diagnostic facilities.
Stuart Windsor, Programme Director for Our Future Hospital, said: “This important building will provide the people of Plymouth and the wider Devon and Cornwall peninsula a facility that they can be proud of, and will finally give our clinicians the space to care.”
The project will deliver more than just a new ED facility that Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall peninsula residents can be proud of—it will also provide opportunity.
The company and its supply chain partners developed a ‘Building Lives Academy’ six-week programme to provide apprenticeships and employment support for young people and ensure the investment stays within the local economy.
“We have a purpose beyond profit, which is to use the energy, passion and commitment of our people to strengthen the well-being of society beyond the buildings we create,” said Group Chief Executive Rick Willmott.