Sunderland Eye Hospital construction update
Work on Sunderland’s new Eye Hospital is “to timescale and on budget” as the one year anniversary of construction approaches – while health bosses have stressed its name has not yet been decided.
Work officially began last November on the new facility which will help to keep the city at the forefront of both regional and national ophthalmology.
Situated on Plater Way, the hospital is being built on the site of the former Vaux Brewery as part of the Riverside Sunderland development.
Once open, the hospital will replace the ageing Sunderland Eye Infirmary in Queen Alexandra Road, providing state-of-the-art facilities and services to patients from across the North East and North Cumbria.
At the latest meeting of the local authority’s health and wellbeing scrutiny committee (on Tuesday, October 1), councillors were provided with an update from South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust bosses on the building, which they said is “rapidly going up”.
Ken Bremner MBE, chief executive at the foundation trust, said: “It’s to timescale and it’s on budget at the moment.
“We’ve got to get through two winters yet, so subject to those two winters we still expect to be taking patients some time around Easter time 2026.
“Hopefully it will get handed over before that, but that’s the date we’ve got in mind for the first patients coming.”
The project is a collaboration between Sunderland City Council and South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, and Mr Bremner reiterated his thanks to the local authority “for their support in making this happen”.
The meeting also heard an agreement has “not yet been reached” over the official name for the new eye hospital.
Mr Bremner continued: “I would say we’ll want to have Sunderland in the title, but we’ll also have something in the title which reflects its reach beyond just Sunderland and South Tyneside.
“We believe it is the premier ophthalmic unit in the country, there aren’t that many specialist standalone eye hospitals now.
“There will definitely be Sunderland in the name, but there’ll also be something I suspect reflecting its wider reach as well.”
He added: “What we will probably do sometime in the new year is go back out to staff with, say three or four options, and just say okay, which one is your favourite.”