Minister of Health Opens Christchurch Outpatients Building

The distinctive new Christchurch Outpatients building brings outpatient services back under one roof, after being dispersed widely across the hospital campus and the city since the 2011 earthquakes.

Five storeys high, the new building provides 10,500m2 of state-of-the-art facilities for more than 20 different outpatient services at Canterbury DHB, including Diabetes, Endrocrine, the Blood Test Centre; Hospital Dental, Canterbury Eye Services (Ophthalmology), Haematology, General Medicine, Gastroenterology, General Surgery, Infectious Diseases, Dermatology, Respiratory, Cardiothoracic, Cardiology, Neurology, and Urology.

The new facility is already a busy building. Just over 300 staff work in the building with around 1000 people on average coming in for appointments each day.

Located just opposite Christchurch Hospital, the building is accessible via a drop-off zone on Oxford Terrace and is served by the DHB’s Park & Ride shuttle from the Christchurch City Council’s Lichfield Street Car Park building, as well as being on major bus routes into the city.

The build took just over three years from start to finish. Initial designs were done by architects CCM in July 2015, Leighs Construction began the build in July 2016 supported by project managers Johnstaff, and final completion and handover occurred in September 2018.

To accommodate so many different services and patients, the new Outpatients was designed with many flexible shared clinical and administrative spaces and operates on lean, efficient, carefully planned principles to maximise the building’s usefulness. It’s also seismically strengthened to “Importance Level 3” standards – that is, to 130% of the building code.

David Meates, Chief Executive of Canterbury DHB, says: “I’m thrilled that after many years of disruptions and relocations we are finally able to offer fit-for-purpose outpatients facilities in Christchurch for the people of Canterbury. Thank you for your patience through this process.

“With new facilities such as the Christchurch Outpatients building now coming on stream, it is an exciting time to be working in health in Canterbury. Being located next door to Christchurch Hospital and within the growing Health Precinct enables our staff to make the most of opportunities to collaborate professionally and to inspire the next generation of health workers, helping to ensure that our health system remains at the forefront of international best practice.

“It’s also important to acknowledge the tremendous efforts of everyone involved in the project. Bringing a building like this to life not only depends upon a lot of hard work from the architects, the contractors and the project management team, but also on vital collaborative work from clinical, administrative, planning and support staff, and input from specialist user groups including health consumers and disability groups.”

Media release from the Canterbury District Health Board