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Where your care is delivered

Our Trust buildings and infrastructure

At Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust our focus is on providing the right care, in the right place, at the right time and everything we do is aimed at delivering high-quality care when and where you need it. Although our teams of healthcare professionals are committed to providing you with the very best healthcare treatment and support, many of the buildings from which they have to deliver that care do not meet the needs of modern-day healthcare.

You should expect more, and we want to offer you better facilities.

Background

The Trust runs its services from 12 different sites across the area. Four of these sites are hospitals providing inpatient services with community services being run out of the other eight sites. Some of our buildings allow other healthcare providers, such as Oxford Health, Frimley and North West London Dental and some charities, to deliver services within Buckinghamshire.

We have some of the oldest estate in the NHS:

  • A hospital on the Stoke Mandeville site was originally established in the 1830s as a Cholera hospital – a very long time before the NHS came into being.
  • Wycombe Hospital was built over several phases from the 1960s.
  • 60% of the buildings owned by the Trust are more than 30 years old.
  • Our Trust faces the ninth highest repairs backlog costs of all healthcare trusts in England.

We are working hard to make sure that all our services, in whatever building they may be based, can continue safely and effectively for our patients while we work towards refurbishing current facilities or replacing them with brand new buildings, as and when smaller amounts of funding become available.

Delivering 21st century healthcare in 20th century buildings

The Wycombe Hospital site has an unaffordable backlog of maintenance requirements, around one hundred million pounds worth, £80 million of which is related to the Tower.

The Tower is in poor condition and yet is home to vital services such as our intensive care unit and operating theatres.

Currently it costs the Trust around £2 million a year just to continue to monitor the condition of the tower and to ensure that clinical services can be safely delivered. We would much prefer to be able to spend this money on the care we provide.

Even if we could find £80 million for all the maintenance work required at Wycombe Hospital Tower, we still wouldn’t have a building that meets the needs of modern-day healthcare. The Tower was a building designed and built in the 1960s with small, narrow wards, poor ventilation and theatres on different floors.

Our main acute services will continue to be provided in Wycombe Tower until we have secured funding for and built alternative facilities on the existing Wycombe Hospital site as part of our public commitment to exit the Wycombe Tower.

The Tower will only be demolished if and when alternative buildings are funded and built on the existing Wycombe Hospital site.

Despite the poor appearance of the Tower at Wycombe Hospital we wish to reassure members of the public that safety is our top priority.

We’re working hard to ensure all services based in the tower can continue as normal while we seek funding to allow us to provide replacement facilities.

We were delighted to opened our  Waddesdon Wing in 2023 that houses a purpose-built children’s emergency department, plus maternity and gynaecological departments.

The building showcases the high standard of building and facilities that we aspire to for the rest of our services in the Trust to support modern day healthcare.

Children's ED entrance

Children's ED corridor

Children's ED waiting area

By contrast our main emergency department, intensive care unit and theatres are situated in decades old buildings that need to be replaced.

The doors into our ICU department

Area at SMH in need of repair or rebuilding

Doors to the out patient area at SMH

Plans for hospital and community healthcare facilities development in Buckinghamshire

The Trust has submitted plans for a landmark new building at the Wycombe Hospital site, to deliver outstanding care for the people of Buckinghamshire in a state-of-the-art environment.

The proposed six-storey building is designed to provide a modern, welcoming space for patients and staff alike and ultimately result in moving core services out of the current Wycombe Tower Block which is unfit for long-term use. Construction is planned to start in early 2026 and, by Spring 2027, we hope to welcome patients and staff to the new Endoscopy Department.

Find out more about development plans for Wycombe Hospital.

We are working to improve the buildings on our Stoke Mandeville Hospital site.

In the last 12 months we have been able to:

  • revamp our emergency services area
  • redevelop our main entrance to the hospital and restaurant area
  • expand and upgrade our ophthalmology service areas in the Mandeville Wing

We also want to be able to provide state of the art buildings for our theatres and critical care facilities.

 

The high street plays a pivotal role in our communities it’s the place where people shop, meet and work.

Our public services need to serve our communities better, especially in areas of deprivation where they need to be easy to access.

Aylesbury town centre

Health on the high street aims to improve the health and wellbeing of our those in greatest need within our communities through accessible and joined up public services. It is hoped that the initiative will also help to support the revitalisation of our town centres as vibrant community spaces.

The Health on the High Street model enables Trust healthcare services to be delivered alongside public health and wellbeing initiatives as well as social support services to create an integrated system centred around the needs of our local people and communities.

Find out more about our health on the high street facility in Aylesbury located in Friars Square shopping centre. 

Further information