Wirral seeks more than £100m for Clatterbridge Hospital revamp 

Architect BDP is drawing up designs on behalf of Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust for the revamp of the Bebington facility. 

A WUTH spokesperson said: “We have lodged an expression of interest with the Department of Health and Social Care for funding to develop our Clatterbridge health campus in line with our strategy.” 

The trust is asking for more than £100m from the government’s £3.7bn New Hospitals fund, it is understood. 

The revamp will position the Clatterbridge campus as a hub for planned care, including surgery and rehabilitation. 

Much of the project would comprise new-build elements but there will be some refurbishment of existing structures at the site. 

Clatterbridge opened as a hospital in 1930 having been a workhouse since 1830. 

However, when Arrowe Park hospital in Birkenhead opened in 1982, many of Clatterbridge’s services were relocated there, including the emergency department. 

Clatterbridge Hospital is home to one of three specialist cancer centres across Merseyside. There is another at Aintree Hospital and a third in Liverpool. 

BDP designed Liverpool Clatterbridge, a £118m specialist cancer facility in the Knowledge Quarter that opened last year.

Liverpool Clatterbridge opened last year. Credit: Clatterbridge Cancer Centre

WUTH’s plan to revamp Clatterbridge follows recent bids for a combined £800m to create new hospitals in Stockport and Leighton. 

Stockport NHS Foundation Trust has asked for £500m to build a new town centre hospital on the site of the former Debenhams store. The facility would replace the ageing Stepping Hill. 

Meanwhile, in Crewe, Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has bid for £663m to replace the ageing Leighton Hospital with a new one delivered in phases on the same site. 

A total of 40 facilities are promised under the government’s New Hospitals programme. Money has already been given out for 32 new-build projects and the programme is actively looking for another eight to sponsor. 

Among the 32 new-build hospitals that have received funding are North Manchester General Hospital and Royal Preston and Lancaster Royal Infirmary.