21 Nov 2005

On 20th October the new University College Hospital – the biggest and most ambitious hospital building project to reach completion in the history of the NHS - was officially opened by Her Majesty the Queen, accompanied by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh.

The new hospital - part of a £422 million PFI project – opened to its first patients in June 2005 and replaces the former UCH, The Middlesex Hospital and the inpatient facility of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases. As the first new central London hospital to open this century, it provides general and specialist health services to Londoners and patients referred from around the country.

During the visit, The Queen and The Duke were shown state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment in the hospital's imaging department, on which £6 million has been spent. They saw a demonstration of the Trust's new film-less Picture Archive Communications System (PACS). PACS enables patient images (including MRI, CT, Ultrasound and Nuclear Medicine) to be stored instantaneously in a central digital archive and displayed on any PC connected to the Trust's computer network.  Patient images are then available wherever and whenever required at the touch of a button with no delay for processing and transporting films.
This was followed by a visit to one of the hospital's 12 operating theatres and finally The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh toured the young people's floor on Tower Level 12 - the largest multi-disciplinary adolescent unit in Europe - which has been designed as a home-from-home for teenagers and young people.

To mark the opening, The Queen unveiled a plaque in the hospital atrium on the ground floor and met a wide range of clinical and administrative staff from across the Trust including those who cared for patients following the 7th July bombings, representatives of the Member's Council, the Board of Directors, Fellows of the Trust and other guests.

Trust Chairman Peter Dixon said: "The opening was an opportunity to celebrate with all those who have been involved with the planning, design and building of this wonderful new facility, including staff, local residents and our consortium partners. It also marked the hard work of staff who have transferred patient services to the hospital during the last few months."