The highly anticipated new Daycase Surgical Unit for Wye Valley NHS Trust at Hereford County Hospital has been opened and is now receiving patients.
The elective surgical unit is cutting waiting lists for patients in Herefordshire and the surrounding area by offering a mix of day case surgeries, including urology, orthopaedic, dental, ENT, gynaecology, cataract, and general surgery.
Located in the main hospital grounds, the positioning of the £21 million unit is designed to minimise travel times for patients and staff.
The introduction of state-of-the-art equipment in a purpose-built, dementia-friendly, environment will vastly improve patients’ experiences and will provide a fit-for-purpose and therapeutic environment to deliver modern healthcare – better for patients and staff members.
Mehmood Akhtar, consultant urological surgeon and associate chief medical director (Surgery), said: “This new facility has the potential to make a huge difference for our patients who will be able to be seen and treated in modern, state-of-the-art facilities.
“We appreciate the inconvenience cancelled procedures can have on patients and this new facility will go some way to help prevent the need to delay care and treatment. This is an incredibly exciting development for us.”
Alan Dawson, WVT chief strategy and planning officer, said: “The demolition of the last of our 1940s hutted wards has made way for this unit which will effectively be a standalone facility.
“It will be run in a way that means it won’t be affected by sudden pressures in our Emergency Department, which have curtailed routine elective procedures in the past.”
The two-storey centre includes pre-op waiting rooms, assessment rooms, two operating theatres, recovery and a dedicated cataract suite. Furthermore, the Daycase unit also houses a main reception and number of staff offices.
A dedicated environment for this type of surgery will reduce pressures on staff by moving elective surgeries that currently take place in the main hospital to this new building, improving patient outcomes, reducing waiting times and boosting productivity.
The new facility has been constructed by Midlands based contractor, Speller Metcalfe, which has a longstanding history of working in and around Hereford. The project has been built with sustainability in mind with it set to achieve BREEAM ‘Excellent’, which is a sustainable building standard and demonstrates both the Trust’s and project team’s commitment to building sustainably.
Mark Hudgeon, Director at Speller Metcalfe said, “We’re pleased to see the new Daycase unit officially handed over and now in use; we know how much this new facility will positively impact the services provided by Wye Valley NHS Trust.”
This new facility comes as part of a government-backed scheme to deliver almost two million additional routine operations across a number of facilities nationally.
The scheme was the first procured through the new ProCure23 national healthcare framework for the design and construction of NHS capital projects. The framework is a collaboration between NHS England and Crown Commercial Services, with an anticipated cumulative spend of £9bn during its lifetime.
