Expanding our Stroke Unit

Work to expand our Stroke Unit and create additional Hyper Acute Stroke Unit (HASU) beds at Dorset County Hospital (DCH) is underway.

A HASU provides high dependency, specialist care for up to 72 hours. Local Acute Stroke Units (ASU) provide onward care and post-HASU support. We will be increasing our capacity and becoming a larger 30 bedded unit, including eight HASU beds from February 2026.

The new unit will:

provide a larger Specialist Stroke Centre at DCH, providing care for a wider population across Dorset and Somerset
build on the high-quality care of our existing stroke service
improve our resilience, particularly out of hours.

While the refurbishment is underway, the existing Stroke Unit team has relocated to DCH’s Mary Anning Unit. The contractor is due to hand over the space in spring 2026.

An interior of a room under construction with exposed wooden beams, insulated walls, and construction materials such as wooden planks and boxes on the floor.

Construction update – November 2025

The new 30-bed unit starting to take shape. Our Contractor Westmade Ltd has now levelled the floors and installed the partition walls.

A new air handling unit will be delivered and craned into place on Saturday, 29 November.

The air handling unit will be lifted in sections onto the roof of the link corridor in between South and East Wing between 8am and 1pm.

Some parking and drop-off spaces in the area, which is by the pencils sculpture, will be temporarily closed off but Estates and Facilities staff will be on site to help control traffic and divert pedestrians during the lifting stages.