THE £430 million Brunel building at Southmead Hospital has been fully open for a year.

Since opening to patients last May, more than 80,000 people have attended the emergency department at the hospital, more than 50,000 planned operations have been carried out and there have been more than 290,000 outpatient appointments. The hospital, run by the North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT), brought together most services from the old Frenchay and Southmead hospitals together under one roof for the first time.

Three-quarters of inpatients are now cared for in single bedrooms with their own bathrooms and a view, which has brought improvements for infection control.

While the main Brunel building has now been open a year, work continues on completing the redevelopment of the Southmead Hospital site. Demolition of the old hospital buildings has now almost finished, with the final block expected to be knocked down by July.

Construction of the second phase of the Brunel building, which includes the new patient and visitor car park, is well under way.

Work on the site is due to be completed by this time next year.

In October Southmead Hospital became the specialist major arterial centre for patients in Bristol, BaNES, South Gloucestershire and some parts of Wiltshire and Somerset.

As part of the move, five different departments from across the old Southmead and Frenchay hospitals – Frenchay Day Hospital, Haematology Day Unit, Renal Day Unit, Rheumatology Day Unit and G Ward Hot Clinic – were brought together into the Medical Day Care Unit.

The unit’s staff were honoured as the Team of the Year in the Director of Nursing Awards held at the trust earlier this month as part of International Nurses Day commemorations.

NBT director of nursing and quality Sue Jones said: “A year on from the Brunel being fully open we have come a long way.

“It took some time to settle in and bed into the new hospital and we acknowledge that there were some problems when we first moved in and these difficulties took a few months to resolve.

“However, we are now reaping the rewards of having our new building and seeing the benefits of having most of our staff based on one site, working more closely together in a state of the art building that has been designed for the provision of 21st century care." She thanked staff for their hard work and praised their efforts.