New training building heralds new chapter

Having celebrated 40 years in business in 2009, and with the breadth of its portfolio growing year-on-year, the training provider has recently entered a particularly exciting new chapter, as plans for a new 3,000 m2 training centre, due to open late next year, and equipped with facilities which Eastwood Park’s management say will be ‘unrivalled anywhere else in the world’, come to fruition. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie reports.

Located on a 220-acre county estate in Falfield, south-west Gloucestershire, Eastwood Park – which has been privately run and owned since a management buy-out by three of its current-day directors in 2003 – began life in 1969 as the National Centre for Hospital Engineering. The Department of Health had identified a need for a training facility to provide expert tuition in a range of healthcare estates and facilities and healthcare support services disciplines to NHS personnel employed in these areas. Over time, the central ‘mansion’ and surrounding outbuildings were developed into classrooms and training facilities, several being realistically ‘kitted out’ to provide a simulated hospital environment. The training facilities have thus, for some years, included a three-storey lift tower, a medical gas suite, a simulated operating theatre, a sluice room, a medical instrument decontamination laboratory, and a dental suite.

Breadth and diversity