A hospital announced the launch of a new veterans’ rehabilitation facility in the run up to Remembrance Sunday.

The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore broke ground yesterday celebrating the new facility which will be part of a wider development called Princess Eugenie House.

The ceremony coincides with Armistice Day this Sunday, marking 100 years since the end of the First World War.

A new “patient hotel” designed to offer rehabilitation services for all NHS patients including a unit for military veterans and reservists is scheduled to open in 2021.

Princess Eugenie House will also include an Independent Living Unit for people with acute spinal cord injuries and a separate facility for parents and carers of child patients.

Military figures, members of the Royal British Legion and professor Timothy Briggs, author of the Chavasse Report into medical rehabilitation provision for veterans, were among those invited.

The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital has been accredited as a Veteran Aware Hospital and is one of the country’s nine Murrison centres, which provide advanced prosthetics to service personnel who have lost limbs in conflict.

For more information, visit www.rnoh.nhs.uk

www.improvement.nhs.uk/resources/veteran-aware-hospitals