The brand-new £91m, 10,800 square meter Coast Building will have 110 new beds, catering facilities and four new wards designed for respiratory and gastroenterology treatment.
Siobhan Harrington, chief executive of University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, said: “This building completes the capacity that we need on the Royal Bournemouth Hospital site to complete the final moves to make this a full emergency site and for Poole to be the planned care site.”
“It is incredibly important, not only to us and our patients, but to Dorset as a whole and I just want to say a very big thank you to all the staff, but also to our partners in Dorset.”
A topping out ceremony marks a significant milestone in construction, celebrating the completion of the structural framework of a building, signifying the building reaching its highest point.
The final act of the ceremony was to nail pine tree atop the building, a tradition put in place to ward off evil spirits.
With the new facilities, hospital executives say the number of patient beds from 600 to over 1,000, increasing services for residents across the BCP area.
Tom Hayes, MP for Bournemouth East, said: “The building is obviously going to be creating more space for patients, but it’s actually about the care, the compassion and the consideration that our NHS staff are going to be showing towards local people who need treatment and support.
“I’m really excited that our NHS is expanding here in Bournemouth.”
Millie Earl, BCP Council leader, said: “It’s a real honour to be here today at the ceremony and fantastic to see University Hospital Dorset investing in their site here at Royal Bournemouth Hospital.
“As a community we very much rely on the hospital to deliver our healthcare to look after us and a fantastic building like the Coast Building with an extra 110 bed and new catering facilities give us all confidence that out hospital is going to be there look after us when we really need it.”
Amy Nolan, a sister in the respiratory ward at Bournemouth Hospital, said: “I think it’s going to be really exciting for patients to have a brand-new space to be cared for in a much more effective way.
“The teams moving in are really excited and it that they’re going to be super dedicated to providing all of this forward thinking care.”
The building is due to open early 2026.