King’s College Hospital re-opens £100m critical care unit

A hospital is re-opening its Critical Care Unit (CCU) after fire safety fears caused it to close in the summer.

King’s College Hospital first opened the unit in April, where it played a key role in the first wave of the pandemic.

But the £100m intensive care unit was forced to shut its doors after hospital engineers and London Fire Brigade inspectors raised concerns about the panels on the outside of the building.

Internal fire barriers in the CCU have now been improved and the fire protection system has been thoroughly tested.

The trust has now declared the unit to be safe and will be admitting patients this week.

The CCU is the biggest and most advanced of its kind in the NHS and can treat 56 patients at one time.

King’s Chief Executive, Professor Clive Kay, said: “Reopening the unit will give us a better working environment for critical care staff, a better care environment for very sick patients, and gives us increased flexibility in our pandemic response.

“London Fire Brigade has been very supportive and given us some constructive advice on our action plan. Brigade staff have visited the site and reviewed the works, and its Principal Fire Engineer has now confirmed it is appropriate for us to occupy the building.”

Dr Tom Best MBE, Clinical Director for Critical Care at King’s, said: “The reopening of this unit is good news for both our patients and our staff as it is much easier to provide the best support in this exceptionally high quality purpose built setting. These critical care beds will also relieve some of the pressures elsewhere in our hospital and allow all our teams to ensure their patients receive the best possible treatment and care.”