Tilbury Douglas is to deliver a £100m emergency department and critical care unit in Dorset.
The contractor announced yesterday (12 February) that it will begin constructing the new facility at Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester this spring, once enabling works have finished.
It expects to complete main construction in 2027.
The new 11,000 square metre building will provide space for major and minor injuries; a mental health facility; an emergency paediatrics area; 24 critical care beds; an ambulance arrivals and fast assessment area; and a rooftop helipad.
The new unit will occupy the site of the former Damers School building, which Tilbury Douglas demolished in the summer of 2023.
Groundworks contractor Blanchard Wells is providing the enabling works, according to the firm’s LinkedIn page and data intelligence provider Glenigan.
The hospital scheme was designed by BDP and Dorset Council gave outline planning permission in January 2023.
Full planning permission from the council followed in October the same year, but the government still needed to approve the full business case.
Willmott Dixon finished an expansion of Dorset County Hospital’s existing emergency department, as well as a 654-space multistorey car park, in 2022.
The scheme for Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is funded by the government’s New Hospital Programme (NHP), with Tilbury Douglas selected through the ProCure22 framework.
Following a review of the NHP, health secretary Wes Streeting announced last month that projects would proceed under a revised timetable in a series of “waves”.
As one of seven schemes where work is already underway on site, the Dorset County Hospital scheme has been included in Wave 0.
Two other Dorset hospitals – Royal Bournemouth and St Ann’s in Poole – are in the same wave of NHP projects.
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Will Ing