Frimley Park Hospital celebrates 50th birthday with "very active" work underway to find new site.
The hospital has been given the green light by the government to move base
Frimley Park Hospital is celebrating its 50th birthday this week, but the milestone comes as the medical institution looks for a new base.
Frimley Park Hospital is built with around 65% unstable concrete (RAAC), but has been given the green light by the government to find a new site.
There had been some uncertainty about whether the move would go ahead after the government announced a review into the national new hospital programme, but it has now been confirmed that all RAAC schemes are exempt from their review.
The Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust tell us that building a new hospital on its current site is "not a viable option", but the new site is expected to be within a five mile radius of it.
The new hospital is due to be ready in 2030.
Caroline Hutton, the senior NHS officer responsible for the new hospital, says "We have a very active piece of work underway progressing as rapidly as we can do to find the best site for our new hospital.
"We don't know where that is yet so we've selected a number of sites and we're doing the due diligence work on those sites at the moment. Of course as soon as we have any information to share we will do."
Ms Hutton also explained what the new hospital could look like.
"We use modelling tools to predict the growth of the population into the future, take account of some of the types of conditions and diseases that might be upon us into the future as well.
"All of that is taken into account and then added into our modelling so we can then say what size of hospital we need."
However, as the hospital looks to the future, people connected with Frimley Park's history have come together this week to celebrate its 50th birthday.
Sue, along with her newly-born daughter Nicky, was one of the first patients in the hospital's maternity unit.
"Nicky was born in Farnham but Farnham Hospital shut that day. Two of us with our babies were moved to Frimley to be the first patients in the maternity unit here."
"When we got here all the staff were so welcoming... they hadn't had any patients and suddenly they had two patients and two babies to look after... it was really exciting".
Other people who took part in the celebration included Joan Brown, who worked as a housekeeper at the hospital a year before it opened, Theresa Mile who was the first student to qualify after it opened, and Katherine Reid, a staff nurse on the children's who worked for the hospital for 30 years.