PICTURES: See hospital's demolition from the sky
The old Harness Block at Southlands Hospital, Shoreham, is being razed to the ground to make way for more than 100 new homes.
Photographer Eddie Mitchell took these pictures and video footage – which offer a never-before-seen view of the work – using an aerial drone-mounted camera.
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Hide AdFor decades, people from across the area were cared for at Southlands Hospital, with thousands of children born there before maternity services transferred to Worthing Hospital, in 1997.
And care at the site will continue for years to come – the Harness Block’s sale will part-fund a new £7.5million eye unit at the part of Southlands being retained by West Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Southlands as well as Worthing Hospital and St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester.
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Hide AdThe new service, which will be called Western Sussex Eye Care – Southlands, will allow the trust to adopt the latest techniques in ophthalmology and is designed to enable patients to receive a test, results and a diagnosis in a single visit.
The future of the Harness Block was at the centre of a review of hospital services at Southlands carried out in 2011 after senior doctors raised serious concerns about the standards of patient safety the building was able to provide.
As well as the new eye centre, the hospital will continue to provide outpatient clinics, diagnostic services and day surgery.
Trust Chief Executive, Marianne Griffiths, said: “We made a pledge to ring-fence the proceeds from this sale to reinvest into Southlands Hospital, and the development of Western Sussex Eye Care marks the fulfilment of that.”
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