Laing O'Rourke has delivered a new £237m children's hospital in Liverpool.

The Alder Hay Children's Hospital was handed over on 1 October and will care for over 275,000 children each year.

It is the first NHS health park for children in the UK.

It provides 270 beds, including 48 critical care beds for patients in ICU, HDU and Burns, together with 16 digitally enhanced operating theatres. The majority of patients will have private, en suite rooms.

The facility was designed by architectural firm BDP.


Alongside the hospital, a Research and Education Centre has also been developed.

The new centre will allow researchers and clinicians to develop safer, better medicines and therapies for children.

Andy Thomson, project director for Laing O'Rourke, said: "Over the past two and a half years a dedicated, talented Laing O'Rourke project team has worked together with Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust, the Trust project team, our partners in the Acorn consortium, the Young People's Design Group and the local community to create a truly outstanding building in the quickest time on record in the healthcare sector."

Louise Shepherd, Chief Executive of Alder Hey, added: "Our new 'Alder Hey in the Park' has been designed to meet the expectations of patients who wanted to be looked after in a state of the art facility that was fun, helped them recover quickly and most importantly didn’t look like a hospital."

(LM/CD)