General facts and figures

• Royal London Hospital new build = 6000 rooms.
• Around 4,000 staff members will move into the new building.
• 52,000 pieces of new furniture and loose equipment.
• 75% of the new hospital programme at RLH will be ready by early 2012, the whole scheme there will be completed by 2015.
• It will be home to a range of specialist centres including London’s leading trauma and emergency care centre, one of Europe’s largest renal services and one of the UK's largest children’s hospitals, provided within a dedicated Women and Children’s Hospital.
• Construction started in May 2006 after approval of the scheme by the Department of Health.
• 97% of materials from demolished buildings are recycled.
• The new hospital has three towers – north tower (10 floors), central tower and south tower (16 floors).
• The tallest building is 284ft, the same height as Big Ben.
• The building has been carefully designed to improve patients’ experience.
• Patient areas are on the outside (or light side) of the building to maximise light. Clinical functions in the centre and offices and stores at the back.
• It is a totally sealed building.  The windows do not open.  It is fully ventilated with 100% fresh air, as a way of reducing noise and controlling infection.  It also makes the hospital easier to clean, as there is no dust or grime coming in.  All air is treated before it comes into the building. 
• In the inpatient areas, over 40% of rooms are single. Others are 4 bed bays.
• All patient rooms have ensuite bathrooms.
• The modern design of the building fits in with the development and regeneration of east London.
• The building has used 7000 km of metal reinforcement (the distance between London and Miami), and 175,000 tonnes of concrete.
• Space is a big feature of the new hospital, with a 3.6m bed centre in each room.  That’s the distance between the centre of one bed and the next, an increase of about 25% on the amount of space each patient currently has and meets new NHS guidelines.
• The shower area is designed as a wet-room with no shower tray. This means there are fewer junctions and joints where dirt can harbour. It also means that patients are less likely to trip and fall. The sloping floor means patients, who are unable to walk, can access the shower area more easily without the need of a hoist.
• Temperature is controllable in every room, rather than remotely.

Emergency Department

• The department is the size of 3 football pitches.
• The new Emergency Department has its own imaging department, with a CT scanner position within the resus area – ensuring quicker diagnosis and treatment.
• Emergency Department has a dedicated decontamination unit at the entrance to the department – speeding up entry time in the event of a biological or contamination incident.
• All cubicles have doors to ensure increased privacy and dignity during consultation.
• Large seminar room for staff education.
• Central monitoring screen within majors area to increase patient safety and observation.
• Large custom built paediatric area with increased cubicle and waiting space.
• Ensuite psychiatric assessment room.
• Increased patient toilet facilities.
• Fully equipped maxillofacial room for treatment of facial injuries.

Theatres

• In total there are 26 theatres in the new building. Theatres on the 4th floor are used for trauma surgery, orthopaedics, and other general surgery.
• Some of our theatres here have lamina flow technology, which provides clean air around the area of the patient. This is for precision surgery, in particular orthopaedics.
• The rooms are a third bigger than our current theatres.
• Each operating theatre has a single 36” LCD screen control panel allowing access to patients’ notes, alter theatre lights, room temperature, blinds, etc on the screen.
• Anaesthetic pendants are attached to ceiling so no cables.
• After surgery, all linen is disposed of and patients leave by a separate exit as staff prepare for the next patient. This means a better patient flow and a reduction in the risk of infection as there is no crossover of patients.
• Theatres are on the same floor as ICU, so that the most venerable patients can be transferred as quickly as possible.
• Theatres here have been configured in same way as at Barts to make it easy for staff to move between hospitals. 
• Intensive Care is on the same floor – there are 44 beds for intensive care patients.

Children’s Hospital

• The 7th floor contains the children’s inpatients including the adolescent unit and children’s general outpatients.
• The 8th floor has our neonatal unit, maternity and gynaecology.
• The 6th floor is the children’s outpatients, theatres, critical care and high dependency unit. Our labour and maternity wards are also on this floor. The labour ward has rooms where women can stay for their entire stay (unless they have complications) – 9 rooms with double beds where their partner can stay too. 
• All the rooms in the children’s wards have spaces for parents to stay on bed-settees.
• Within the children’s wards we have specialist rooms – some with negative pressure and some with positive pressure. The positive pressure rooms are for children who may have conditions where their immune system is at risk, and so they are protected from any germs or infections that may be outside of the room (controlling the air coming in). Negative pressure rooms are for children who may have infections which need to be contained within the room (air flows from corridor into the room, ensuring that contaminated air cannot escape). These pressurised areas are also applied in some of our operating theatres to reduce the spread of infection.

Children’s play areas

• We have two large spaces for children to relax and play in – an outdoor ‘garden’ on the roof and a double height indoor space.  The winning design for the outdoor area was recently unveiled – jpegs available from Press Office.  The aim is to create a space that children will enjoy and feel comfortable in during their time in hospital.  Both areas are designed to appeal to all ages of children, their families and friends. 
• The roof garden is conceived as a “forest” landscape accessible to all patients and visitors, in the day and evening, with protection from the rain and wind. It is a place to run around, play hide-and-seek, chat and relax or just experience nature. The fully accessible “forest floor” (a combination of non-slip rubber crumbs and timber decking) gently ramps up to a tree house teepee and stage area. Real tree trunks support the forest canopy with climbing Clematis Montana as foliage. The garden is animated by movement created by the wind, views across the city and the environment created by the landscape; it is intended to be another magical space for patients and visitors to find refuge in the hospital.