News & Updates

The new national facility for young people being built at Ayrshire Central Hospital in Irvine needs a name and we want your help to choose one.

We hope that work will start on the 12-bedded unit for children aged 12 to 17 years with complex difficulties later this year. It will be the first secure adolescent inpatient service for young people in Scotland, and means that children will be cared for nearer to home, with the appropriate care, treatment, therapies, security and on-going education.

A list of four possible names has been compiled with the help of the project’s Public Reference Group and the Irvine Youth Forum. The names focus on nature to reflect the building’s surroundings.

The choices are:

1. Aspen
2. Carduus (pronounced “kar-do-us”)
3. Foxgrove
4. Parkland View

People can vote for their favourite by completing a short survey online at https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/HelpChooseAName/. We are particularly interested in the views of young people and will be working with Young Scot to spread the word to secondary school aged youngsters throughout Scotland.

Stephen Brown, Director for North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership, said: “We are appealing to people to help us choose the name of this major health facility. While this facility is in North Ayrshire, the secure adolescent inpatient services will be used by children and their families from all over Scotland so we are hoping that we will get nationwide responses to reflect that.

“This new facility will be part of the community and as such we hope that members of the public, staff, service-users and patients will get involved and vote on which name they prefer.”

The closing date for votes is 31 August 2020. The name with the highest number of votes will then be presented to Ayrshire and Arran NHS Board for final approval. The new name will then be revealed.

If you would like to get involved in the development of the new facility, the project’s Public Reference Group are looking for members. You will be asked to attend virtual meetings approximately every two months to receive updates on the site development. Your suggestions and comments will be passed to the project Steering Group and Project Board who have the responsibility for delivery of the development.

For more information, please email aa-uhb.clinicalnsais@nhs.net.