Nuffield gets £5m facelift and creates new jobs (From Bournemouth Echo)

Nuffield gets £5m facelift and creates new jobs

3:48pm Wednesday 3rd February 2010

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MORE than £5 million is being pumped into a private hospital in Bournemouth and new jobs are being created.

The Nuffield Health hospital in Lansdowne Road has already seen £3.2m invested in it over the last 18 months.

And a further "£2m will be spent in 2010 on bedrooms, a recuperation area and Nuffield Health signage", according to hospital general manager David McNair.

"We have created new bedrooms, new consulting rooms, new treatment rooms and an administration block, which was previously a derelict building," he said.

There is an ongoing recruitment drive with the charity looking for a nights charge nurse, an anaesthetic staff nurse and a registered child nurse.

Nuffield Bournemouth employs 225 staff and its patients have access to "more than 200 consultants and doctors".

The hospital offers a private general practitioner service, which "has grown by 100 per cent over the last two years" fuelled by the NHS being "a crowded market".

Patient numbers for this service have risen from 50 a month two years ago to 120 and now the hospital hopes to attract "up to 200 a month by the end of 2010".

The Nuffield Bournemouth, which has three theatres, an endoscopy suite and a full diagnostic suite with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners, covers all specialisms "from orthopaedics through to plastics and cosmetics".

"Orthopaedics is certainly starting to grow again and cosmetic surgery has grown within the last two years," Mr McNair said, putting this down to the NHS only offering it for reconstruction work following accidents.

"Our activity has held up well," he added, hoping that 2010 will see increased activity.

Founded in 1957, Nuffield Health also owns Cannons Health & Fitness Clubs and employs 10,000 staff nationally.

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