5 July 2019

HRH The Princess Royal to open new MRI Suite at Conquest Hospital

Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal is to visit Conquest Hospital on Wednesday 17th July to open the new MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) Suite.

Her Royal Highness opened phase one of the hospital in February 1993 and opened the hospital’s second phase in 1998, 21 years to the day before she is due to open the MRI suite. Her Royal Highness will unveil a plaque to mark the opening of the new MRI suite, meet some of those who have generously donated and raised money to fund the purchase of two new MRI scanners as well as visit staff in the hospital.

Dr Adrian Bull, Chief Executive of ESHT said: “It is a great honour for us that Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal will visit the hospital and open our new MRI Suite. This new suite is a significant investment offering patients and clinicians much improved diagnostic facilities. The opening ceremony is an opportunity for us to thank our major contributors who all made donations to fund the new scanners.”

The new MRI Suite is a modular construction made up of 17 separate modules, some weighting over 26 tons. Each module was originally built in Hull, transported and assembled together on site. The new multi-million pound development provides patients with a state of the art facility with spacious changing and waiting areas. Two wide bore Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanners; one kindly funded by the MRI Scanner Appeal Committee, Friends of Conquest Hospital and the other funded by the League of Friends of Bexhill Hospital, allows the trust to meet the increasing demand for Magnetic Resonance Imaging for the local population. The suite provides a safe and custom built environment to manage both complex conditions and those patients requiring general anaesthesia. The new machines greatly improve imaging quality and allow more technically advanced scans to be performed, not previously provided within the Trust, helping to reduce the need for patients to travel.

Dr Justin Harris, Consultant Radiologist and Clinical Lead for Radiology said: “The new MRI suite provides a custom built facility with two state of the art scanners. It is a vast technological improvement on the single 15 year old scanner we previously used.  The suite provides high quality imaging to the local population, meeting the increasing demand for complex MRI including cardiac, prostate and small bowel imaging. Patients suffering from claustrophobia benefit from the scanners wide bore access and the use of audio-visual aids to reduce the need for sedation or general anaesthetic. Improved imaging quality now enables much more effective diagnosis, analysis and subsequent treatment of pathologies such as stroke and many types of cancer.”