The Louisa Martindale Building stands as a pillar of modern healthcare, replacing the historic 19th-century Barry Building. This state-of-the-art hospital marks the completion of the first phase of the £700m+ Brighton Trauma, Tertiary and Teaching (3Ts) redevelopment project. This cutting-edge facility is poised to revolutionise health outcomes for patients across Sussex.

Commissioning a building of this magnitude is no small feat. From ensuring patient safety to minimising disruptions to healthcare services, there are many complexities to steer. We collaborated closely with the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust to support their seamless and swift transition for all patients into the new Louisa Martindale Building.

Leaving no stone unturned

With 245 inpatients to relocate, every detail was meticulously planned to avoid errors. Our team worked with the Trust to undertake comprehensive modelling of all operational commissioning activities, incorporating factors such as construction milestones, optimal times to move whilst minimising disruption, workforce planning and equipment provision. A bespoke patient move plan was crafted based on this data and tailored to each department's needs, prioritising patient care and wellbeing above all.

Client

  • University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust

Project Status

  • Completed

Awards

  • Highly commended for HSJ Partnership Awards 2025 - Healthcare Infrastructure Project of the Year

Key achievements

average downtime for the nine outpatient departments
1 day
pieces of equipment and furniture were transferred
16,043
items of major medical equipment were installed and commissioned
14
I’m proud of the operational commissioning plan we designed and delivered in partnership with WSP. The programme is a clear roadmap of how to commission other future new hospital buildings smoothly, with valuable learnings that can benefit others with similar commissioning challenges.

A celebration of monumental teamwork

Planning a patient move is one thing, but delivering it is a whole other challenge, with numerous intricacies to navigate. With a move plan outline covering over 90 individual departmental transfers, each activity was carefully orchestrated. This ensured the Trust had a clear roadmap of what needed to be done and when, to maximise the chances for success.

We conducted a series of detailed patient move planning workshops with around 100 Trust staff from various divisions, covering all phases of the inpatient moves on an almost minute to minute basis. The Trust also developed a commissioning programme and mobilised a plan for managing the implementation of all activities. This included named move liaison staff for every department, detailed go/no go criteria based on clinical and environmental considerations, along with clear and well-resourced escalation pathways for any issues. 

Additionally, workforce planning enabled extra clinical staff to be brought onto the site for the moves and a diverse, dedicated non-clinical staff group to be assembled to support transfers.

This diligent planning and effective collaboration resulted in 245 inpatients being successfully relocated over five days as part of an overall move conducted over 3.5 weeks, without any clinical incidents.

Paving the way for future success

Given the project's scale and complexity, there were several valuable lessons learned that can benefit the broader healthcare industry. Our team is proud of the work delivered alongside the Trust, with insights already being shared with four UK hospitals on the New Hospital Programme. We are also utilising the lessons learned for eight other NHS operational readiness commissions.
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There are lots of moving pieces with projects like this, with collaboration being key to navigating this. It’s been a truly rewarding experience working with the Trust to successfully move patients into the new state-of-the-art Louisa Martindale Building. The vital learnings from this project will be used to help other organisations successfully achieve the same results.
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