The new intensive care unit in the Critical Services Building at Canberra Hospital will open in August. It will, health minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said, be “really state-of-the-art”, and meet modern design and equipment requirements.

“This hospital is now 50 years old,” Ms Stephen-Smith said. “We are building an intensive care unit that will be futureproof for the next 10, 20, maybe even beyond that, years to ensure that it meets the needs of Canberra as this hospital campus continues to change, as our community continues to grow and age, and we see more people with chronic conditions.”

Staff are already excited by the prospect of working in the bigger, more modern facility.

“Firstly, this new unit has huge potential to expand and literally just transform the patient experience,” clinical director Dr Tina Xu said. “Secondly, this is the evidence that Canberra Health Services has a huge focus on critical care service…”

The current ICU admits more than 2,500 patients a year; it has 39 beds, following an expansion in early 2022. The new unit will have 48 beds, nine more than the current unit, and divided into four 12-bed pods, rather than the current four-bed pod structure. That gives patients more bed space, so they are not “squished in”, nurses say. The pods can be sealed off during pandemics.

“The space in each pod is absolutely beautiful,” Rosalie Austin, assistant director of nursing, said. “The colours are lovely and warm. It’s bright, open space. The majority of bed spaces have floor-to-ceiling windows, which have been a really positive experience for patients; they’ll be able to turn their beds around so they’ll be able to look outside, so they have that day/night routine, which will be important for their recovery.”

The ICU can eventually be expanded to 60 beds.

“Doing a lift and shift is the easiest way to ensure that staff are supported through a move from one facility to another,” Ms Stephen-Smith said. “There’ll obviously be staff moving from a range of buildings on the Canberra Hospital site into the Critical Services Building, and being able to move with the same size of service and the same number of staff into the same bed size as an initial move actually makes that move easier for staff.

“We’ve obviously looked at what the demand is. We have recently increased ICU staffing and capacity, and we will be continuing to staff for the same number of beds as in the current facility. But this space will give us the opportunity to continue to increase that staffing and capacity as demand grows into the future.”

The new ICU has four paediatric beds, “to ensure that our youngest patients are getting the specific care and support they need,” Ms Stephen-Smith said. Armchairs next to them transform into adult-size beds so parents can stay with their children overnight.

Canberra Hospital’s paediatric care was criticised after the deaths of four children between 2020 and 2022. Ms Stephen-Smith said that the hospital was “intent on ensuring that we’re lifting our capability to care for sick and deteriorating children here in the ACT”, whether they be treated here or are transferred to a children’s hospital in Sydney.

There is also a lounge and play area for families. The ICU was designed in collaboration with consumers and carers, Ms Stephen-Smith said.

“The ICU is a space where sometimes people are dealing with very difficult and challenging circumstances that might have arisen very suddenly, and families are quite traumatised. So having those separate family spaces to enable that support for the families through that really difficult time is very important.”

Canberra Hospital is the tertiary trauma hospital for the surrounding southern NSW region, and the new Critical Services Building is the centrepiece of the Canberra Hospital expansion, designed to increase emergency department, surgical, and critical care capacity. Having a new helipad on the roof, and the retrieval section, the emergency department and the ICU in the same building, is “a real step change for Canberra hospital, Ms Stephen-Smith said.

The ICU also has a therapy space; a courtyard with sheltered bed bays so patients and their families can spend time outside; bariatric rooms with weight-rated equipment; a procedure room for minor procedures not needing anaesthetic, so patients do not need to be moved around the hospital; and a clinical training facility, with simulation spaces, mannequins, and equipment. Dr Xu hopes it will become a national simulation centre. There are also storage spaces so staff can quickly access equipment and material.

“The staff that work here in the intensive care unit do a phenomenal job,” Ms Stephen-Smith said. “Every day of the week, I get constant positive feedback about the way ICU staff support patients and their families, whether it’s somebody who’s recovering from a complex surgery, whether it’s someone who’s got a deteriorating medical condition that needs to be managed, or whether it’s someone who’s been involved in an accident and has major traumatic injuries that need to be attended to here at Canberra Hospital.

“The ICU staff are really amazing, so it’s fantastic to be able to deliver them this new state-of-the-art facility to do their work even better.”