Work started on a new state-of-the-art imaging centre in April 2019, and continued throughout 2020-21 despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our current imaging facilities already offer patients some of the most cutting-edge services to diagnose cases of suspected heart and lung disease in the UK. The new centre will allow us to expand clinical services, increase research and education programmes and create the type of sophisticated centre patients expect from a leading specialist heart and lung centre.
It will also improve access to our imaging services, including MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), CT (computerised tomography) and X-ray for both children and adults in a bigger, better space. Plans for the centre have been co-designed with clinical teams and patients.
The new centre has four storeys – two above and two below ground level – and will open in early 2022. It represents an investment of £47 million.
Professor Simon Padley, consultant radiologist and director of radiology, said: “Having a single building for most of our imaging facilities is going to be a significant step forward. It will mean we can, at last, offer all of these tests in one location and in a much more co-ordinated way.
“Importantly, the new centre will also have a multi-bay day case facility meaning we can treat many of our patients in a day and completely avoid the need for them to be admitted. We know that this is a very welcome development from the patient perspective.”
Facts and figures about the new imaging centre at Royal Brompton
- Imaging plays a vital role in modern medicine. It involves using a variety of technologies – including X-rays, ultrasound, CT and MRI – to produce detailed images of the inside of the body to help diagnose, monitor and treat medical conditions.
- The project was signed off by the Trust Board in 2015 and given planning permission in December 2018. Preliminary building work started in April 2019.
- Excavation took three months with up to 50 lorries a day transporting the total equivalent of four Olympic swimming pools of material from the site.
- The roof of the new centre will be the same size as four tennis courts.
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