What will Torbay Hospital look like in the future?

Developments such as the construction of Torbay Hospital in 1926 only come around once in a generation. The then state-of-the-art hospital changed south Devon forever, and redefined the scale and scope of healthcare for the next 100 years.

Although that original hospital is now showing signs of expiry, a new £400 million redevelopment promises a fresh once in a generation opportunity for the Bay, potentially setting the tone for the future of healthcare for yet another century.

Last week, the Torbay Weekly explored the many infrastructure problems that Torbay Hospital is facing. As the third oldest hospital in the country, issues such as sewage leaks, crumbling concrete and water ingress have blighted the estate.

This week will focus on what the hospital is set to look like in the future. Torbay Hospital is part of the Government's New Hospital Programme, making it one of 40 sites earmarked for a radical redevelopment.

As part of the new hospital, Torbay Hospital will see a new ward block, a new planned care centre, a multi-storey car park and refurbishment across the site.

In 2026, Torbay and South Devon NHS are also scheduled to go live with a brand new electronic patient record system, which will help digitally transform services and embed clinical best practice ahead of the new hospital.

Torbay will not only receive a brand new hospital, but it will also be designed through the Hospital 2.0 scheme. Hospital 2.0 is a standardised design for future hospitals which will benefit patients and staff through digital solutions and optimised hospital layout. It’s hoped that Hospital 2.0 will decrease the average time to develop and build hospitals as well as reducing the cost through economies of scale.

Walking around the Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust’s latest developments, it’s easy to see that many parts of the hospital are already showing the way.

Just round the corner from some of the estate’s most problematic buildings stands the brand new Day Surgery Unit.

The new £15 million building was officially opened in February 2024. It has two operating theatres and additional pre-operative assessment and recovery spaces. Over time, this expansion will allow Torbay and South Devon NHS to support 4,500 more people each year.

One theatre is focused on breast and orthopaedic surgery, in order to help provide focus on day surgery hip, knee and shoulder replacements across the organisation. The other will be used by the eye surgery team.

“We have a fantastic reputation for day surgery,” said Caroline Cozens, the Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust’s Director of Capital Development.

“Torbay Hospital is first class in getting people in, having their surgery, and getting them home in the same day. That’s crucially important, generally the less time you spend in the theatre and in hospital, the quicker you recover.”

The two new operating theatres in the unit have revolutionised the delivery of surgery and helped to alleviate the long backlog caused by Covid.

When the construction of the new hospital begins, the new theatres will also be invaluable. Caroline explained: “This building will act as a stepping stone to our new hospital. Having the capacity here will help to alleviate pressure when we’re developing a new planned care centre.”

The construction of the new planned projects across the country seek to change the way hospitals are built. Rather than using traditional building methods, standardised aspects of the design across all of the new hospitals will mean that they can be constructed like a kit.

What this means in practice is that many design decisions, from how to heat and insulate a building, to room dimensions and equipment locations, are decided at the programme level, unlocking design savings and aiding constructability.

It will also make Torbay Hospital much easier to upgrade in the future, as pieces of the design will be able to be removed, modified and added to, even when the hospital is operational.

The potential of Hospital 2.0 can be seen in Torbay's brand-new £5 million Endoscopy Unit, which was opened in November last year.

Endoscopy is a common procedure using cameras to examine tissue and organs inside a patient. Prior to its opening, most endoscopy treatment had been carried out in a portable unit in a car park and the waiting list had exceeded 1,000 people. However, this soon began to change after the unit was opened. The new facility revolutionised treatment while its thought-through design helped patients recover fast. Even the earthy green paint used was a conscious choice to help patients feel better.

Caroline said: “Last month, the waiting list for the Endoscopy Unit was down to under 100 people, and now we’re on track to eliminate the backlog all together altogether.

“It just goes to show that when we have the right facilities and the right staff, issues can be resolved very quickly.

"Endoscopy is a big service, but it’s just one of many. When we talk about the rebuild, there are so many different services and parts of the hospital that will have a cumulative effect on alleviating pressure.”

However, the new hospital is still a long way down the line. Having the Hospital 2.0 project work across many different sites makes for complications and inevitable delays.

The 40 projects have been split into four cohorts. Torbay Hospital is in Cohort Four, in part because of some of the complexities of the build and constraints of the hospital site.

“There is a complex process behind landing your project within a bandwidth of something you can deliver,” Caroline explained.

“We've got a scheme that's deliverable but everything we do has to be in line with the national programme."

Each hospital must go through various stages to progress with the initiative. Torbay and South Devon NHS must wait for sign-off at each stage before shovels can be put in the ground for Torbay Hospital’s redevelopment. Until then, millions of pounds will continue to be spent on keeping the old buildings in a safe and usable condition.

When boxes are ticked and the green light is given, however, the rewards will be massive. Walking into the labyrinth of corridors of the current ageing hospital, Caroline explained a few examples of what Torbay Hospital could look like in the future.

“It’s exciting how much of a transformative impact the new hospital will have on healthcare,” she said.

“Through digital innovation, we can extend the wards of our hospital out into the community. It’s well known that most people recover quicker at home and using technology, we can look after you as a patient in our virtual ward. We already use AI in a number of diagnostics at the moment and this is set to expand.

“We’ll know digitally when a room becomes vacant and will be able to organise beds and treatments at a hospital-wide level. We’ll even be able to trigger robots to clean the wards and bring laundry - that’s the future we’re thinking about.”