£2m to help grow urgent care centre
PLAN REFLECTS THE NEED FOR SOCIAL DISTANCING
AN assessment centre at Burton’s Queen’s Hospital could be extended to help it follow social distancing guidelines after it received £2 million in funding.
Existing office space at the Belvedere Road hospital’s emergency department will be converted to form part of the new enlarged acute assessment centre allowing the unit to expand. The assessment centre is situated next to A&E department and assesses whether patients need to be admitted into hospital, or can be treated as an outpatient.
The work would create another four clinical bays for patients and is expected to cost just over £900,000, plans say.
University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Queen’s, has applied to East Staffordshire Borough Council for permission to make the changes after it received £2 million in funding from The Department of Health and Social Care in August.
The trust got a total £4 million in Government money, with the other half to be spent at the Royal Derby Hospital, which the trust is also responsible for running.
The funding is to help prepare for winter, as well as to put in place infection control measures to limit the spread of Covid-19.
Sharon Martin, chief operating officer at the trust, said: “We are grateful to have received this additional funding to further improve our acute front door services for our patients who require urgent care.
“At Burton, this funding will be used to convert existing office space in our emergency department into four new clinical bays, while also allowing the trust to expand our acute assessment centre.
“Having this extra capacity will enable us to treat more patients safely throughout the winter period and provide the additional space needed for our patients and staff to follow social distancing guidelines.”
A decision on the planning application is due in the next few months.