The new £237m hospital, which has been designed with the help of children and young people, will have 270 beds, including 48 for those requiring critical care
will be known as “Alder Hey Children’s Health Park”, is to open its doors in 2015 and is like no other hospital the UK has ever seen. It will sit in the heart of Springfield Park, creating views of green space or parkland from every patient’s window.
The new building will have operating theatres are nearly four times the size of their current facilities, and there will be more space around beds for parents to be with their children.
The building design has three distinctive prongs, which will be landscaped with turf utilising neighbouring Springfield Park, melding it into its “iconic” flower-type design which sets it apart. At the end of those prongs there will be play decks for children.
The project is expected to finish in the summer of 2015, but there will then be a period of moving the old hospital, equipment and staff and testing before it is open.
Since work on the new hospital began almost 700 primary school children have visited the site and 126 work experience days have been provided for high school and university students.
But the immediate difference visitors will notice of the inside of the new structure, compared to the current building – and former workhouse – is space.