NHS centre of excellence opens its doors

The most hi-tech hospital in Europe opens its doors to patients this week.

University College Hospital in central London becomes the first in Britain to try a new system connecting to every hospital ward, GP surgery and health centre in the country.

Every patient will have access to a phone, the internet, a television and pay TV channels on a bedside console. Doctors will also be able to log and call up a patient's records.

The wireless IDX Carecast system, costing ?8million, will have a summary of a patient's history, administration and X-rays.

The ?422 million hospital, at the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Euston Road, has 595 beds in 19 storeys. Accident and emergency, outpat ients, critical care, orthopaedics and radiotherapy services are now all on the site.

The NHS trust's chief executive Robert Naylor said: "We will have academics and teachers, scientists and clinicians with NHS doctors all on one site, which will allow medical research to flourish.

"It will put us on the same footing as the major research centres in America. We are in a position to attract the very best scientists from within the UK and abroad."