NEW £27M SUPER HEALTH CENTRE OPENS MAKING EXETER A WORLD LEADER A new £27.5 million health education and research centre overlooking Exeter’s Barrack Road, is now open, streamlining the process from discovery to patient care. The Research, Innovation, Learning and Development (RILD) building is seen as putting Exeter at the front of healthcare innovation world-wide. A partnership between the University of Exeter Medical School and the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust (RD&E), it will allow patient studies, laboratory studies and the education of health care professionals of new findings in a single building. It also provides a forum for students, researchers and clinicians to come together and ensure that medical research is relevant for the needs of the NHS. “Our close partnership with the RD&E means that in many cases, clinicians are directly involved in research and this means our breakthroughs will have direct impact on patients in the South West and across the globe.” Professor Andrew Hattersley, who heads up one of the University of Exeter Medical School research teams in the new building and is the Research and Development Director for the RD&E, said: “These new facilities are a real asset to Exeter: they will greatly improve the research we can do and will help attract top research scientists to Exeter. “My area of expertise is diabetes: this new centre means we can design and carry out studies on patients with diabetes, test samples from them in state of the art scientific analysers and communicate results to our clinical colleagues, all in the same building. “ It puts Exeter right at the front of healthcare innovation world-wide.” The new centre replaces the old RD&E Exeter Postgraduate Society Education Centre and 90 per cent of the demolished building was recycled. The building combines renewable energy, heat recovery and an external solar shading solution – the external “fins” which control light, heat and glare levels.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 17:40:12 +0000