Our new hospital
Cornwall is a special place – a rural, peninsula county that is served by just one acute healthcare provider, the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT).
We have three sites – the main hospital in Truro, plus a centre of excellence for orthopaedics at St Michael’s Hospital in Hayle and a community acute hub at West Cornwall Hospital in Penzance. Together, they serve 590,000 people across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
Over the next 10 years, RCHT will experience a major transformation. Our new Women and Children’s Hospital will be built on our Truro site as part of the national New Hospital Programme. This major change will go far beyond structural and infrastructure changes; we also have plans to become a more digitally enabled, “smart” hospital.
The Royal Cornwall Hospital will also have a new main entrance designed alongside the Women and Children’s Hospital. Associated changes between now and then include a new microbiology unit built to the centre of the site, upgraded electrical infrastructure, improved parking and access routes, new pharmacy offices and a relocated cardiac department. In fact, more than a third of the site will change. And at the end of the programme of works, the Princess Alexandra Wing will be demolished.
Beyond this major programme of works, other areas of RCHT have also seen major improvements. West Cornwall Hospital, for example, opened its new outpatients department in June 2025, following 15 months of construction.
We intend to digitally transform our hospitals, too. eCare, our electronic patient record, is coming in 2026, and we’re also testing technologies for digital wayfinding, quieter wards, task management, building information modelling for our estates, and sustainable building solutions.
We want to do all this with you on board. As patients, staff and members of the community, your voice counts, and we’d like your help. Find out more about us, our plans, and our projects, and please get involved…
Our ambition is to deliver outstanding care for one and all.
Non-urgent advice: Site access and parking restrictions
Access to our hospitals will sometimes be affected by the current building programme. You can find information about current access and parking arrangements at the Royal Cornwall Hospital (Treliske) and at West Cornwall Hospital (Penzance) via this link: Site access and parking restrictions during construction
Latest news
Our new hospital – update on designs
29 May 2026New concept designs for our new Women and Children’s Hospital are being drawn up by our design team that fully adopt the design guidelines set for the New Hospital Programme.
Film documents the work of Accessibility Advisory Group at new Outpatients Department
15 May 2026We’ve put together the short film to document the work of the RCHT Accessibility Advisory Group during the design and construction of the new Outpatients Department at West Cornwall Hopsital. It is the first major capital project that the group […]
Silent Hospital pilot expands to antenatal services at Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust
6 May 2026We’ve launched Phase 2 of our Silent Hospital pilot, extending the innovative digital technology to antenatal services within maternity care.