I went to a meeting the other week to discuss the future of the Royal Sussex County Hospital. I have an interest in health services and sit on a number of bodies in the Health Service as a Patient Representative.

There are very few people in the Brighton and Hove area who have not, at some time or other, used the services of “the County” as it is known to most people. It is a large hospital which has departments covering various branches of medicine. It has two large out-patient departments and a Casualty Department. However, much of the valuable work of the Hospital is carried out in buildings which are long past their “use by date”.

When my wife died in the Egremont Ward at the hospital four years ago, I became determined that I would what I could to support moves to improve things so that in the future people would not have to end their days in miserable wards like this. Wards which are dull, very utilitarian and where Florence Nightingale – the founder of modern nursing, over a hundred years ago, would feel very much at home. The standard of nursing and other medical help which my wife received was excellent but it is appalling that these devoted people should have to carry out their essential work in such drab surroundings.

The hospital was built in 1828. Its main building - the Barry Building was named after the man who designed it - Sir Charles Barry who was also was the architect of the Houses of Parliament. The other main building – the Jubilee Building was built at the time of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887.

The main intention of the new plans for the County is to bring it in line with new and modernised hospitals in towns and cities such as Eastbourne where patients stay in either single rooms or bays which each contain four beds. The décor and surroundings are pleasant which, in itself, is surely conducive to helping the patient feel better and get better. One of the main reasons for these improvements, however,is not cosmetic but to help control the various infections which run rampant in our hospitals. The spread of these is, of course, helped by patients being crammed in the large wards. The outpatient, casualty and other departments are also to be modernised.

This is all great news for staff and, most important, for patients but I couldn’t believe my ears when they told the meeting it was going to be another ten years before these important developments were completed.Whilst I fully undertand you cannot treat patients out on the street whilst you do the work,examples in other places show that developments to hospitals can be done in much less time. I hope that the people of Brighton, and the area around which the County serves, will join me and others in calling for these much needed improvements be completed in much less time.