The Royal Marsden, in Chelsea, is considered to be one of the best hospitals in Europe for treating cancer
The UK’s cancer hub is getting a major upgrade which includes a seven-storey extension. Royal Marsden, in Chelsea, is considered to be one of the best hospitals in Europe for treating cancer.
It is currently rated as “outstanding” by the Care Quality Commission. Bosses now say that the hospital has “outgrown its site” and that the building needs to be expanded so that it can continue to deliver a high quality of care.
Ed Rose, Deputy Chief Executive for the Royal Marsden Trust, said: “165 years after our founding today our single biggest constraint holding us back is our staff nor equipment our ability or our funding its our ageing estate. 60 percent of our buildings are more than 60 years old with much infrastructure predating the founding of the NHS itself. Our wards are smaller than modern health standards require
“Our extraordinary staff continue to deliver outstanding care but this is too often in facilities that make their jobs harder than they should be.” Despite concerns from residents, Kensington and Chelsea’s Planning Sub-Committee decided to approve the application on Monday evening (July 13).
Councillors heard the hospitals Chief Nurse, Mairead Griffin, read out an emotional statement from a cancer patient who was treated by the hospital.
“How do you thank a place that didn’t just treat your illness but protected your life, your hope and your future?” the patient wrote in the statement. “For nearly 10 years The Royal Marsden has been part of my story. Five clinical trials, countless appointments, moments of fear, months of strength and through it all an unwavering team who never allowed me to feel like just another hospital number.”
The development will see a new extension built, comprising a basement and seven storeys. This will include 67 inpatient beds, a 27-bed day of surgery department and a 41 chair day unit.
A three-storey frontage building will also be built facing Fulham Road, providing a screened serving yard and new clinical bed wards and isolation rooms. The plans also include a three-storey structure, including a winter garden, which will be built on-top of bunkers in the centre of the hospital campus.
This will provide a staff canteen and a hospital event space, as well as physiotherapy and occupational therapy rooms. Several buildings, including the Oratory Building, Grove House, and Theatre 8 of the Chelsea Wing, will be demolished to make way for the extension.
A consultation on the plans received 71 objections and 117 comments in support of the development. Corinna Mitchell, who represented residents living on the nearby Guthrie Street, told the Sub-Committee that locals supported the concept of the extension but felt the design was “bulky monolithic and institutional.”
“We fully recognise and support the outstanding work undertaken by the Royal Marsden Hospital,” she said. “Nobody disputes the importance of improving health care facilities or that there are public benefits that this proposal seeks to deliver.
“However, an important public benefit does not remove the need to achieve good planning and good design or to protect the high levels of residential amenity currently afforded to local residents. This proposal is simply too large for its surroundings – that is the fundamental point.”
Residents objecting to the application also raised concerns about the impact on daylight and sunlight levels for nearby properties.
However, the applicant told the Sub-Committee that the affects were reasonable in the areas “urban context.”
Royal Marsden Trust has also promised to keep working on its plans for servicing the building.
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