Hospital’s go-ahead for £28m extension
BUILDING work on a £28m four-storey extension at The Royal Oldham Hospital has been given the final green light.
The Northern Care Alliance NHS Group (NCA) has received business case approval which will allow them to demolish existing facilities and in its place construct an extension to the main building at the town’s hospital.
Inside the new build will be two 24-bed general surgery wards and while a new emergency theatre will be created within the current theatres unit.
This will allow The Royal Oldham to operate as the hub site for high risk and emergency general and colorectal surgery for the north east of Greater Manchester.
David Jago, chief officer at the hospital, said: “The new surgical hub will provide much needed expertise to the people of the north east of Greater Manchester.
“It will enable other developments at The Royal Oldham, which will advance our ambitions to provide care and employment to the people of Oldham and beyond.”
A main contractor for the capital works, IHP, has been selected and a public consultation on the new build took place in November 2019.
The new facility will sit adjacent to the main hospital building, on the site of K Block, which will be demolished as part of the works.
Planning permission for the extension was granted by Oldham council in August, and bosses expect building work to start within the coming months with the new building opened by spring 2023.
Mike Barker, chief operating officer at the Oldham clinical commissioning group, recently described the current hospital building at The Royal Oldham as ‘not fit for purpose for the 21st century’.
Dr Nick Tierney, the hospital’s divisional clinical director for surgery said the go-ahead for the extension works was ‘fantastic news’ for the surgery division, as well as patients and staff.
“Having a new state-of-the-art theatre for emergency and colorectal surgery will allow our surgeons to perform at the highest possible level with positive benefits in the quality of care delivered to our patients,” he added.