The Sight & Sound Centre will be the UK’s first dedicated medical facility for children with sight and hearing loss in the UK. Patients with these conditions currently represent the largest outpatient group in the hospital, with 25,000 patient visits each year.
Construction is scheduled to start in autumn 2018 and take 18 months to complete.
Cliff Thomas, managing director of Kier Construction London, said: “GOSH is globally recognised as an innovative healthcare centre for children and we’re very proud to be working on this project. We have extensive experience in the healthcare sector, having built over £2bn worth of medical facilities in the past 13 years and we are looking forward to delivering the UK’s first medical centre for children with hearing and sight loss.”
The cost of the building is being met through charitable donations, including £10m pledged by Premier Inn.
The new centre will have:
- specialist facilities for outpatients being seen by Audiology, Cochlear Implant, Ophthalmology, Ear Nose and Throat and Speech and Language Therapy teams.
- soundproofed booths for hearing tests, an eye imaging suite, a dispensing opticians and other testing facilities.
- a garden with plants designed with the senses in mind, for children to see, touch, and smell.
- specially commissioned artwork incorporating bespoke sensory elements thanks to the hospital’s in-house arts programme GOSH Arts.
Hospital chief executive Peter Steer said: “More than 8,000 children and young people with sight and hearing conditions come to the hospital each year and our current facilities do not cater for their needs. The Sight & Sound Centre will improve care by bringing clinicians supporting these children together in one place and vastly improve the patient experience by creating an environment tailor-made to these patients’ needs."
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