Hartley Hospital

Working with Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

In-patient and community mental health services brought together in a tight urban setting of the coastal town of Southport.

Client

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Location

Southport, Merseyside

Value

£24,000,000

Gross internal floor area

4,779m2

THE PROJECT

Hartley Hospital is a new-build in-patient and community mental health service for adults and older adults in Southport. The accommodation is comprised of 2 in-patient wards, an assessment unit, community mental health consulting rooms, share therapy facilities, a café, and offices for community mental health teams. It provides inpatient and community mental health services co-located for the first time, in a modern therapeutic environment.

OUR APPROACH

Designed to latest best practice in mental healthcare design, Hartley Hospital provides a safe and robust environment in a calming and setting. Set in a tight urban setting, the design employs a no-fence approach with the building wrapping around central courtyards to provide safe access to gardens spaces.

Both wards are at ground floor level, with the older adult ward closer to the know to provide a sense of routine and familiarity. Community services are located at first floor level.

Southport’s Victorian streetscape set the building line parameters and informed the building’s sense of scale.

WHAT WE DID

Through extensive service user engagement, the design for Hartley Hospital was a co-production between service users and staff with the design team. Their input informed flexible and sustainable nursing models, dementia-friendly design, art work, materials and colour choice, as well as the naming. Stakeholder engagement and public consultation took place in a variety of venues include The Life Rooms, and the Atkinson Theatre.

Externally, feature brickwork and timber cladding blends into the local architecture and effectively references the pier and seaside location.

THE IMPACT

All service users now have their own en-suite bedroom – a huge contrast to the dormitory accommodation they had previously. The building also gives privacy and dignity to service users and provides an environment that uplifts.

The name for Hartley Hospital pays tribute to the heritage of the previous Southport General Infirmary site and nearby former Christiana Hartley Maternity Unit. Christiana Hartley was the daughter of famous jam-making magnate Sir William Pickles Hartley who set up his factory in Liverpool, was also Southport’s first woman Mayor and a health and social reformer a century ago. The name was chosen after public consultation.