I warmly welcome the £15 million plans to transform and improve the urgent and emergency care services at Worcestershire Royal Hospital. The plans could involve relocating and expanding the hospital’s Emergency Department and even creating an ‘emergency village’ with a range of diagnostic and treatment services including a dedicated children’s emergency department.
These plans come after the offer of an additional £15 million central funding to Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust and aims to reduce waiting times, streamline ambulance handovers and improve care in and out of the hospital.
Matthew Hopkins, Chief Executive of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHSTrust has commented:
Despite the huge amount of hard work done by our urgent and emergency care teams every day, there is a recognition that on our Worcester site, the ED is simply too small for the volume of patients. This development will give us a bigger and better urgent care facility and that is great news for our patients and staff, but it is only part of the story. We have seen at the Alexandra Hospital how reconfiguring the ED and acute medical services has delivered real improvements in waiting times and patient experience and we are keen to build on that with the development on our Worcester site.
I’m very pleased with this announcement of additional funding and these plans for improving and developing emergency care in Worcestershire Royal Hospital. I know it’s so important for my constituents to have the confidence of incredible healthcare on their doorstep, and I know how hard NHS staff work to deliver this and how much pressure they’ve been under. It’s encouraging to see these first steps being outlined and I’m sure it will result in an improvement and will make sure Worcestershire residents can receive the best care possible.
Subject to planning approval, building work is due to start on the new development before the end of April, with the aim of a phased opening of the new unit starting in spring 2022.
