Since our award-winning children’s hospital opened in 2005, the number of children and young people who come to us has more than doubled, and those with complex needs requiring specialist care continues to grow.
Healthcare is always evolving. As our clinical teams grow and develop, and as we learn more about conditions through our world-leading research and that of our partners, we are able to offer more life-changing care and treatment to the children and families that need us. We are also expecting our heart services to double in size, as subject to the necessary public consultation, children’s services will move from the Royal Brompton Hospital in Chelsea to an expanded Evelina London Children’s Hospital at St Thomas’ in around five to six years’ time.
This means we need more space so we can care for even more children and young people in London and across the south east who need our outstanding care and specialist services. Find out more about why we need to grow.
We plan to build a new hospital building, which will be joined to our existing children’s hospital and we have been working with our architects and developers to design what our bigger and even better children’s hospital will look like. We have discussed our plans with families who use Evelina London, our staff, local organisations and partners, and the local council to make sure our plans and designs reflect their feedback. We are designing the new hospital to ensure it gives us the new, flexible space we urgently need, and to allow us to care for the growing number of children and young people who need our care now and in the future.
How our plans have evolved so far
We have shared the latest drawings with the public, our families, and our staff through a number of online presentation sessions. The comments and feedback from all of these and completed survey forms have helped us shape our plans for our new hospital building. We are now preparing to reach the important milestone of submitting our planning application for the building to Lambeth Council in April.
We are excited to be sharing the plans for our bigger hospital. These designs have been created by us working together with our development partner Linkcity, and our architects Hawkins Brown. We have worked hard to evolve these designs with all of our stakeholders and they remain subject to change as part of the planning application process.
Views from Lambeth Palace Road
This computer generated image shows how the new building will appear if you are looking north on Lambeth Palace Road.
This computer generated image shows how our new building will appear if you are looking south on Lambeth Palace Road.
View from Westminster Bridge
This computer generated image shows how our new building will appear from Westminster Bridge. St Thomas Hospital's North Wing can be seen in the foreground.
What does this mean for children and young people?
Our new building will include:
- 100 additional beds across new wards
- 20 additional beds for children and young people requiring critical care
- 14 new operating theatres and interventional rooms
- Specialist imaging facilities
- More support spaces including for families.
A bigger hospital will mean we can treat many more children and young people and reduce the time they wait for appointments or treatment. It will also allow us to bring more services together in one place, which is better for children’s care and something many other children’s hospitals have done. We are designing spaces in the hospital to be flexible so that we can adapt to the changing needs of our patients and our services into the future.
Children, young people and their families are at the heart of helping us to shape our designs so that, just like our current hospital which it will be connected to, we create a bright and welcoming environment which doesn’t look or feel like a traditional hospital.
The new hospital building is part of our plans to grow. Find out more about how to get involved in helping us shape our plans.