NHS GREATER GLASGOW TRAILS THE FUTURE

A major advertising campaign on the new Stobhill and Victoria Hospitals is launched today (Tuesday 5th July).

Over the summer, Adtrailers will be passing through local neighbourhoods showing the latest images of the hospitals.

The vans will also be pitching up at local supermarkets and libraries, where our community engagement team will be out and about speaking to the public.

The Adtrailers are part of a wider campaign to raise awareness of the new hospitals amongst patients, staff and the public.

Also included in the campaign are a new DVD containing flythroughs of the hospitals, information boards to be erected throughout Stobhill, the Victoria and local health centres, a range of leaflets and a series of radio adverts.

Robert Calderwood, Programme Director for the New Hospitals explained the importance of the new information campaign. He said, "The plans for Stobhill and Victoria are exciting yet have caused anxiety in some pockets of our communities.  There are concerns about the distances that people will have to travel for inpatient care.  There are also concerns about the consequences of providing stand-alone day surgery if a patient develops a complication during day surgery.

"As such, it is crucial that we explain clearly what these new hospitals will do and reassure the public that they will continue to receive the vast majority of their health care locally and safely.

"To date, we have only had limited success in this.  The initial names given to the hospitals ‘ACADs' and ‘Ambulatory Care Hospitals' have not proven to be successful.  ‘Ambulatory' is not an everyday word; it has served to cloud - not help - people's understanding of major role to be played by these new hospitals.

"I am confident that our new campaign – making full use of the new images and explaining in detail the full range of services to be provided and what happens if a patient develops a complication – will help deal with those concerns."

The campaign is being rolled out at the same time as two major new exhibitions commemorating over a century's tradition of healthcare in the north and south east of Glasgow.

"The Past, Present and Future of the Victoria" and "The Past, Present and Future of the Stobhill" chronicle the history of the much-loved hospitals and celebrate some of their pioneering clinicians, including Dr Ebenezer Duncan, who first proposed the building of the Victoria in 1878.

The exhibitions also look forward to the future of the hospitals when the old buildings will be replaced by new multi-million hospitals with well-equipped treatment areas, state-of-the-art theatres and modern, airy waiting areas.

Ends.

Notes to Editors

• The Victoria Infirmary was opened in 1890 as a voluntary hospital with a bed complement of 84 beds. By 1906 it had 260 beds. A further 120 bed wing was added in 1927 and a paying patients block was completed in 1935. In the late 1940s the Infirmary was designated a major teaching hospital. Between 1959 and 1971 substantial upgrading and new building work, including new laboratories, operating theatres and Out-Patients Department, was undertaken.
  
• In 1899 the local Parish Council bought the land to build Stobhill Hospital. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, the then Secretary of State for Scotland, laid the foundation stone for the new hospital in September 1901. The first patients were admitted to the hospital in 1903 and by the summer of 1904 Stobhill had 800 patients. Stobhill was officially opened on 15 September 1904 and had over 1,800 beds.

For further information, please contact Communications on 0141 201 4429.