A new Ellen Badger Hospital

The Trust has been committed to developing the Ellen Badger Hospital site since 2018.

To kick start the development the League of Friends transferred a donation they received of £635,000 to enable the Trust to buy the land next to the hospital site. The purchase of this land has facilitated the development plans.

Since the proposals were initially discussed there have been several external factors that have contributed to changes in the design, plans and timescales. These include responding to and learning from Covid, funding within the wider health economy and increasing costs in the construction market.

Despite these challenges the Trust is progressing with the plans and when complete there will be a range of services available on the site, with enhanced clinical spaces for hospital and community services.

The new site will offer a range of services, including:

  1. Car park with space for mobile diagnostics
  2. Health and Well-being Hub
  3. Shared spaces for Community Nursing and Health Visiting teams. There will be outpatients and treatment rooms for physiotherapy, specialist nurses and other health professionals including mental health clinicians
  4. Existing building will initially provide the day hospital, outpatient clinics and physiotherapy services, flexibility in the future to be used for other services

Clinical and operational teams at SWFT are currently looking at which medical specialties will run clinics from Ellen Badger Hospital. We will use health data to identify the most needed services for the local population.

Progress on site

Demolition of the old hospital building is now complete. We recognise the rich history of the Ellen Badger Hospital, unfortunately though it was not viable to restore the original building due to its age, condition and infrastructure meaning it would not meet future compliance regulations. We are retaining as much as possible and have done a detailed evaluation of all the historical artefacts which we will sensitively incorporate into the new build.

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Work to secure the structure of the retained estate is underway and scheduled for completion by the end of March 2023. We are now working with contractors to agree a date for the retained estate to be operational again for delivering services.

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Installation of new ducts to connect to the new hospital have been complete.

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Build timeline

We are delighted that an order has been placed with contractor Speller Metcalfe for the main construction works to begin.

They will be starting on site in April 2023 and completion and handover is anticipated in Summer 2024.


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Working with Shipston Medical Centre

SWFT continue to work closely with Shipston Medical Centre and Coventry and Warwickshire’s Integrated Care Board to progress the ambition of an integrated healthcare facility for the communities of Shipston and surrounding villages.

All parties are keen to explore all options to progress this and the construction work is being completed in such a way that integration with the Medical Centre in the future is possible.

Phase 2 sustainability elements

South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust places significant focus on sustainability. Therefore, during the Ellen Badger Hospital development, the Trust is, where possible, re-using and recycling materials and ensuring the building meets industry approved sustainability standards.

During the demolition and construction of phase 2 we are:

  • Following BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) Excellent guidance for the building. This is a recognised industry standard which buildings should meet in terms of sustainability.
  • Using many items of the old hospital. This includes re-using and recycling large quantity of re-usable brick, timber, mental etc. This approach is also construction best practice.
  • Using on-site crushed bricks and concrete, called 6F5, as the ground make up and piling mat for the new building. There is approximately 150 tons of this on site created by the demolition of the former building. This saves removing all the debris off-site, only to bring new crushed stone back on-site using big lorries. Which is costly, and not environmentally friendly.

In the phase 2 building we will have:

  • Air source heat pumps for the main heating.
  • Gas fired low emission boilers for domestic hot water generation via heat plates.
  • Low energy air conditioning units.
  • Heat recovery units to aid with the heating in many areas. This is also linked to the ventilation systems.
  • Thermal efficient walling.
  • Thermal efficient windows and doors.
  • Thermal efficient roof system.
  • Full energy efficient LED lighting throughout. Complete with motion detection where required.
  • Efficient water usage sanitary ware.
  • Responsible planting and material selections for the landscaping.

Questions and answers from Shipston’s Senior Citizens Action Network (SCAN) meeting - Tuesday 14 March 2023

In March 2023, members from SWFT met with Shipston’s Senior Citizens Action Network (SCAN) to discuss what stage the Ellen Badger Hospital development is currently at and to answer any questions the members had. The following questions were asked and the below answers given.

Do you have the funds available now to build the development?

Please be reassured that, despite increasing construction costs, we do have the funds to build this development.

The League of Friends transferred a donation they received of £635,000 to enable the Trust to buy the land next to the hospital site. The purchase of this land has facilitated the development plans.

The construction work is being funded by Trust capital money and £2.3million of national funding, which we obtained following a successful bid.

What is the Community Infrastructure Levy allocated by Stratford District Council being spent on?

Stratford District Council has allocated £1.4million through the Community Infrastructure Levy Funds to support the implementation of a GP surgery and health and wellbeing facilities in Shipston. £900,000 will go towards the health and wellbeing element of the project.

Will we get a General Practice?

Shipston Medical Centre are a private business separate to the Trust. We wanted to do this project together and we are both still very committed to doing this as a joint venture.

In the development we are building, we are protecting some space for the Practice to operate from while they weigh up their options. If they decide they do not want this space we will look to offer this out to other services to support the health and wellbeing of Shipston residents.

When we need services like x-rays and are due COVID-19 vaccines we have to go to Stratford. Will these services be available in the new hospital?

There is a national directive to invest in central diagnostic centres (CCDs) across the country. We have three in Coventry and Warwickshire (one in Stratford, one in Nuneaton and one in Coventry). However, as part of the development we will be providing the infrastructure to enable mobile diagnostics to take place on the Ellen Badger Hospital site. This facility will be a response to what the Shipston community needs. For example it was highlighted to the Trust that a breast scanner no longer comes to Shipston and therefore this is a service that could be provided using the mobile diagnostic space.

Vaccine programmes are run through General Practice. Previously, our Trust offered Stratford Hospital to be a vaccine hub for free. This was to ensure people could get their vaccines as soon as possible. However, the vaccine campaign is not something we lead and therefore we are unable to confirm if vaccines will be administered in Shipston going forward.

Will you provide a list of what services will and won’t be available at Ellen Badger Hospital?

A review is currently taking place about which services are required to meet the local community’s health needs. The findings of this review are scheduled to be published by June 2023. Following this, the Trust will provide a comprehensive list of the services that will and those that will not be provided at the new Ellen Badger Hospital.

Have you sold all the equipment from the former hospital?

The Trust has made an archive list of all the equipment that was in the former hospital. We haven’t sold any of these items.

Are we likely to get something like a minor injuries unit?

Currently a review of urgent care, which is looking at how we manage emergency demand, is taking place across the whole of south Warwickshire. However, there is no plan at this current time to put a minor injuries unit back at Ellen Badger Hospital.

Following closure during the pandemic, the minor injuries unit at Stratford Hospital is back open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays between 9am-5pm. Due to staffing challenges and operational pressures, the service is not available any other days at this current time, but the operating hours will be reviewed regularly and will be extended dependant on staffing levels.

Will you have enough staff to run the planned service?

In general, there are on-going challenges with recruitment in the NHS and these are not always to do with funding but around a reduction in applications.

To enable the demolition work to take place, a number of staff were temporarily redeployed to other Trust sites. These staff will move back once the new hospital is built.

In addition, the clinics which we plan to run from Ellen Badger Hospital are already taking place in other places. Therefore, we have the teams already available to safely facilitate these services.

We are in the process of reviewing how we effectively use resources to ensure the right care is provided in the right place, at the right time.

Bat licence for Ellen Badger Hospital development

As with lots of large-scale development plans, things occur that are unplanned for. As part of the pre-construction work, protected bats were found. Natural England have been working to establish a way forward and last week we were granted a bat licence, so work has now begun on site.

Click here to download a copy of the licence

We will get as much information to you as we progress the development and really want to get your feedback at every stage. If you have any further comments or questions, we would encourage you to send them to EBHdevelopment@swft.nhs.uk