Groundbreaking marks start of major works to build new ADC

On Tuesday 23 July 2024, a groundbreaking ceremony took place at West Middlesex University Hospital, marking the start of building works for our new £80m Ambulatory Diagnostic Centre (ADC), which will improve diagnostic and treatment times within our local community.

This £80m investment is the largest capital project that the Trust has ever run, which includes a £16.5m capital grant from NHS England and fundraising efforts from the Trust’s official charity, CW+.

The new five-storey building will provide essential diagnostic and treatment services for cancer, renal conditions and imaging to residents of Hounslow, Richmond and Ealing. The ADC is expected to drive significant growth in activity over the first decade from its opening with a 43% increase in elective diagnostic capacity. This expansion will translate to approximately 67,000 additional imaging scans, ensuring timely and efficient diagnostic services for patients.

In attendance at the groundbreaking ceremony was Ruth Cadbury, local Member of Parliament (MP) for Brentford and Isleworth, who donned personal protective equipment (PPE) as she headed onto the construction site with Trust executives and the operations director from Bouygues UK who have been contracted to complete the works.

The new development is designed to be an all-electric building, supporting the Trust’s commitment to sustainable development. At the event, a memorial tree was planted just in front of the site where the new building will be constructed to commemorate the occasion, along with a new bench made entirely of recycled materials from the demolition site and plaques that will remain in the hospital.

In the main hospital atrium, informative stalls were held by partners, including the hospital’s charity CW+, which supported the event and is raising £1.5m to fund a programme of patient enhancements in the new facility. Bouygues UK also had a stall and information was available for staff and patients about the benefits of the new ADC.

The new centre aims to reduce health inequalities in the local area by doubling capacity for renal and cancer services, ensuring that our local community can access critical treatments sooner and closer to home.

In cancer care, the new facility will nearly double the current capacity for chemotherapy treatments, increasing the number of chairs from 10 to 18. This enhancement will enable the hospital to deliver approximately 3,000 more cancer treatments over the next ten years, marking a 48% growth from the first year of the ADC’s operation to year ten.

Renal services will also see a significant boost, with the number of dialysis chairs increasing from 12 to 24, representing a 100% increase in capacity and allowing for an additional 72 outpatients to be treated locally.