Coping with Covid would have been ‘significantly’ easier with changes
HEALTH bosses say coping with coronavirus would have been “significantly” easier if proposed changes to Leicester’s hospitals were already in place.
Speaking at the launch of a public consultation into the £450 million revamp plans, chiefs said had the planned new set-up of the hospitals already been up and running, medics would have been better placed to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Andrew Furlong, medical director for Leicester’s hospitals, said: “The changes we’re proposing to make would mean we are better placed to provide care for all of our patients now and in the future, but particularly if there is a pandemic.
“The plans almost double intensive care provision and we didn’t have enough provision during the first Covid phase. We would have segregated care in emergency and planned care which would mean some of the stuff that had to be taken down in the first phase we would have been able to keep going.
“As you know, most elective services were paused and we’re in the process of trying to restart those but one of the difficulties we have is because of the underlying presence of Covid and the gradual increase in Covid that we are seeing again is the infection prevention that we need to continue to maintain.”
A new treatment centre at Glenfield Hospital was one example of how services could have been protected.
The treatment centre, complete with state-of-the-art operating theatres and day-case wards, will help prevent routine operations being cancelled when Leicester’s hospitals are under pressure.
Health bosses want to build the modern extension on the hospital site as part of a £450 million revamp across University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust.
Mr Furlong said that at the height of the pandemic, there were 79 coronavirus patients needing intensive care locally, which had a knock-on effect on other services.
In Leicester, the paediatric intensive care unit had to be cleared to make way for adult patients, resulting in poorly children being treated in Birmingham instead of at Glenfield.
“Children’s services, both locally and nationally, were significantly affected by the pause of some of the services and those areas that had standalone children’s hospitals were able to keep those services going in a much better way than those that didn’t,” Mr Furlong said.
The revamp plans at the moment include 30 per cent of beds being in single rooms, health bosses are now considering upping that to 50 per cent. They are also thinking about the layout of buildings to allow for one-way systems.
An artist’s impression fly-through video shows how the treatment centre, which will be a dedicated site for day case and planned operations with between 15 and 17 operating theatres, could look.
Plans for the Glenfield site include:
■Build new premises for a major new treatment centre for planned care, inpatient wards and theatres.
■Expand the intensive care unit to create a ‘super’ intensive care unit.
■Create new surgical admissions unit
■Build a new car park
■Create a new welcome centre.