SWFT give update on what’s inside Ellen Badger building in Shipston as it emerges from scaffolding

REACTIONS to the completion of a new Ellen Badger building on Stratford Road in Shipston were mixed when the scaffolding came down last week.

The wellbeing hub is the first of two buildings proposed by South Warwickshire University Foundation Trust (SWFT) for the site to be completed and is due to officially open in June 2025 after it is fitted out.

The removal of the scaffolding gave residents a better view of the imposing building, which sits to the right of the old hospital.

Although some found the large modern building to be too “barn like” most commentators on a Facebook post sharing an image of it didn’t mind its appearance but did find disappointment in the development so far, in particular the lack of plans to have a bedded ward – which the Beds 4 the Badger group continue to campaign for.

Zoe Mccauley said: “It looks really good. Hopefully now they just need to allow beds back. Most hospitals look like this now, shame to see the old one go but this is more up to date.”

Edd Bartlett christened it the “Ellen Badger barn”, adding that it looked “ready for dancing and hoedowns”.

Sarah Davis added: “To be honest I don’t think it looks too bad. It is on the large side, but it looks OK. We really need to embrace the change as it won’t go back now. Complaining about it really won’t make a difference.

“I just hope that we have some success in bringing the beds back along with the services we need.”

Picking up that theme, Danny Boyce observed: “Without beds it is the biggest white elephant in the local area and its fancy architecture will mean absolutely nothing.”

Others queried the wording on the front of the building.

Sarah Lewis commented: “It is really such a sad time for Shipston, how can they call it the Ellen Badger Hospital with no beds?”

The development has been carried out by architects One Creative Environment. The company’s original vision saw three joined buildings: the now completed wellbeing hub would sit in the centre, with a new 16-bed hospital on the left (looking from the road), and a new GP surgery to the right. Plans changed to just the hub and GP surgery around 2021, and somewhere along the way an initially quoted budge of £15m, became £8.2m.

Shipston Medical Centre – a private firm of GPs – is expected to fund around £4.5m of building costs, although it is still in discussions about whether it will proceed, and so the second building remains in limbo.

The bedded ward is now subject to a public consultation following a bed review which led to SWFT suggesting that the 16 beds that were originally located in the old Ellen Badger could be permanently moved to Leamington Hospital’s Campion Ward.

The six-week consultation is due to start in January.

Welcoming the completion of the wellbeing hub, which is believed to have around 30 rooms, a spokesperson for SWFT gave an update on the facilities and services it would house.

They explained: “We continue to work with clinical and operational teams to plan service provision from the new site, some of specialties we know will have clinics there are specialist Parkinson’s disease nurse, heart failure nurses, physio, antenatal clinics and audiology.”

Although the new site has infrastructure for mobile diagnostics, SWFT does not provide screening services but said it had approached relevant providers.

With the promise of developing more specialist clinics in the future, they added: “We are also working up a new model to increase treatments at the site, this is currently in the planning phase and as soon as more information and details are available, we will share them.”

Referring to Lord Darzi’s recent damning report into the NHS, which found it was in serious trouble, with inadequate provision and public confidence at an all-time low, the SWFT spokesperson added: “We are waiting for the new national ten-year plan for the NHS, but we are confident that our model for Shipston is in line with the direction the government is implementing and recommendations outlined within Lord Darzi’s report.”