Refurbishment of South Walks House and Ridgeway Ward
Health organisations in Dorset secured more than £14million to transform two floors of South Walks House in Dorchester into clinical space.
Dorset County Hospital (DCH) had been running an Outpatient Assessment Centre on one floor of the building, which is owned by Dorset Council, since November 2021.
This was initially set up as a temporary measure to tackle NHS waiting lists and was created as part of the Dorset Health Village - a partnership between NHS Dorset, Dorset HealthCare, Active Dorset and Live Well Dorset. Patients were invited to attend orthopaedic, musculoskeletal and physiotherapy appointments.
The temporary centre was a great success and, in March 2022, DCH signed a 20-year lease with Dorset Council to use three additional floors of the building on a long-term basis - allowing the Trust to maximise the use of clinical space on the main hospital site.
The building is now being used for a combination of clinical and office purposes, with non-clinical teams using two floors of the building.
The funding came from NHS England's Elective Recovery and Community Diagnostics Programme to turn the temporary centre into a more permanent facility and expand the clinical services offered at South Walks House.
Ridgeway Ward Refurbishment
As part of the funding bid for South Walks House, Ridgeway Ward has been refurbished into a dedicated ward for orthopaedic elective surgery patients.
Existing ward space has been transformed into the Ridgeway Elective Orthopaedic Unit, which includes a new admissions lounge for people coming in for orthopaedic surgery and a therapy suite to support patients with their recovery.
The new unit will allow people to be admitted for their orthopaedic surgery more quickly, and also enable patients to go home sooner to continue their recovery.
