£5.5m refurb of operating rooms
THEATRES IN ASHINGTON UPGRADED TO MAKE THEM CUTTING-EDGE
TOP-OF-THE-RANGE operating theatres have opened at Wansbeck General Hospital after a £5.5m refurbishment and a ‘significant upgrade’.
The latest work – the second phase of a major revamp of facilities at the Ashington hospital – was completed at the end of May. The idea is that the remodelled theatres will help surgeons increase efficiency and help tackle the backlog of people waiting for elective treatment.
The theatres have been improved to boost flexibility and hospital bosses said this would improve the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust’s capacity for complex procedures including spinal and orthopaedic surgery.
Theatres one to four at the hospital have now been remodelled, adding to work completed on numbers five and six this time last year.
Scott Muller, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and project lead, said: “Our people are the ones responsible for delivering the high-quality care that people expect from Northumbria, but their jobs are made much easier by ensuring they can work in top-of-the-range facilities with a wide range of benefits for patients and staff.”
Marion Dickson, the NHS trust’s executive with responsibility for surgery, said: “I’m delighted that this important project has been completed successfully and that we now have six new state-of-the-art theatres available for our patients.
“We are working incredibly hard to ensure waiting times for patients remain as short as possible and while we are not where we want to be, our performance on a national level continues to be very strong.
“This is because of the fantastic efforts of staff, our model of care and a continuing focus on innovation and investment, like this renovation.”
Wansbeck Hospital – like Hexham and North Tyneside General Hospitals, which are also part of Northumbria Healthcare – is a centre of surgical excellence and this allows much of the trust’s elective care to be carried out away from the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital.