Health Secretary Alex Neil officially opened the new Royal Victoria building within the Western General Hospital this morning. The £43.6 state of the art facility replaces the Royal Victoria Hospital on Craigleith Road which closed last year.
The new building is all single-bed rooms – the government set out an aim in 2008 that single rooms would become the norm for new and refurbished hospitals.
Health Secretary Alex Neil said there are substantial financial and health benefits to single rooms. He said: “You have to look over the life cycle of the hospital, the building, what is going to be the savings made for example by reducing the incidence of hospital acquired infection. It’s not just the financial cost of that, what’s most important is the benefit to the patient. I think most people would want to be in an environment where the risk of hospital acquired infection was kept to the absolute minimum.”
