Orthopaedic Barn Theatre, Maidstone Hospital
Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust (MTW) is an Acute NHS Trust with two main hospital sites at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells at Pembury. Over the past years, as well as operating in Maidstone Orthopaedic Unit (MOU), Maidstone Short Stay Surgery Unit (MSSU) for day case surgery and Tunbridge Wells, the Trust has outsourced a large proportion of the backlog to the independent sector with MTW surgeons working in private theatres due to the lack of capacity at MTW. The Trust therefore intends to build a ‘barn theatre’ as part of a modular construction on the Maidstone site.
The new building includes a 22-bed in-patient ward, and a 16-bed day patient ward, with an admission waiting area to maximize the use of the theatres for day cases as well as joint replacements. This will provide more theatre capacity across all specialities at Maidstone and Tunbridge NHS Trust hospitals.
The term ‘barn theatre’ refers to the open-plan design of the main surgical area, where each patient is treated in a dedicated space alongside the next patient, with a specialised air canopy over each station to prevent the spread of infection. The barn theatres have adjoining anaesthetic rooms and traditional recovery areas. Benefits of barn theatres include lower infection rates, improved safety and enhanced team working.
As part of the NHS drive towards Net Zero Carbon and sustainable construction the project is targeted to achieve BREEAM Excellent.
