Insight Private Hospital, Albury, New South Wales

Swanbury Penglase were engaged in August 2018 by Nexus Hospitals to undertake renovations and expansion of their existing Insight Private Hospital in Albury.

Located on Level 5 of The Gardens Medical Centre in the heart of Albury, the hospital has sweeping views over the Albury-Wodonga region. The existing hospital facility occupied the bulk of the floor plate however there were several consulting suites located on the west side of the building which Nexus were able to take over and expand into.

The Nexus Hospitals brief was to:

• Construct a fourth large Operating Theatre suitable for orthopaedic surgery.
• Increase the number of Pre-operative Bays and Stage 1 and 2 Recovery Bays to cater for increased theatre capacity
• Expand existing Ward capacity from ten beds to twelve.
• Resolve functional issues and improve operational flows to increase theatre utilisation.
• Upgrade CSSD to meet requirements of recently updated Infection control standards and cater for increased theatre capacity.
• Upgrade existing staff facilities to provided improved amenity for staff.

A key requirement for Nexus Hospitals was that the existing hospital facility continue to operate whilst construction works were undertaken. Careful consideration of the required staging of construction works to facilitate ongoing operation informed the project design and documentation.

An early design decision was made to relocate CSSD and construct the new fourth Operating Theatre within the former consulting tenancies (expansion space). Whilst this had obvious benefits in limiting facility disruption it was also critical to the operational re-organisation of the operating theatre zone and its relationship to expanded Pre-operative Bays and Recovery Bays along with the new CSSD facility. This has facilitated substantially improved utilisation of the existing 3 theatres.

Construction was successfully completed on time and within budget in February 2020.