Glenfield hybrid theatre will improve vascular services

A recent project at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester has seen Interserve redevelop and improve the hospital’s vascular, cardiovascular, and angiography facilities, with the construction of a new hybrid theatre creating what University Hospitals Leicester (UHL) NHS Trust describes as ‘a cutting edge and comprehensive centre for cardiovascular medicine and research on a single site’. James Gordon, BA DipArch RIBA, of scheme architects, P+HS Architects, discusses the project, and explains how the focus at Glenfield it is part of a wider drive to improve vascular services and diagnostic capabilities across the Trust’s estate.

Appointed by Interserve Construction for the redevelopment and improvement of Vascular Services facilities at Glenfield Hospital, P+HS Architects’ scope of works included new vascular inpatient wards, an angiography treatment suite including stage 1 and 2 recovery, and the expansion of theatre provision to include a new state-of-the art hybrid theatre. Hybrid theatres, a relatively new concept that combine an operating theatre with an interventional radiology suite, are becoming increasingly popular; they can be used either as a conventional operating theatre or as a radiology facility, but their real value is in combining the two – allowing intraoperative and post-operative imaging and intervention. Hospital Trusts recognise the benefits in improving patient experience, clinical outcomes, interdisciplinary innovation, and efficiencies in the delivery of surgery. 

Hybrid procedures such as those within cardiac/vascular interventional work have been performed in ‘cath labs’ for many years. The advent of hybrid theatres now allows multi-disciplinary procedures in neuro, orthopaedics, trauma, and vascular, to be delivered in what has become an image-guided operating room. At the forefront of this emerging area of theatre design, P+HS Architects has been invited by a number of private providers, as well as other NHS Trusts, to provide feasibilities through to delivery for such specialist facilities.