£40m A&E unit
‘The news we’ve been waiting for!’
Scarborough’s new £40m A&E department will reduce waiting times for patients and be the envy of hospitals around the country.
Work on a new two-storey building is set to start next year and health bosses say it will help to attract staff to the Yorkshire coast and end speculation about the site’s future.
Two months ago, there was fear and speculation around town that the emergency department at Scarborough could be downgraded, but Mike Proctor, chief executive of York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said
the multi-million pound investment was “news we’ve been waiting for”.
He told The Scarborough News :“It demonstrates, despitesome of the stuff on social media, that we are committed to the people of this area. They say ‘judge us on our deeds and not our words’, well this is quite a substanstial deed. I think it will help us to attract staff more easily and we will be really well known for our A&E care. People will be coming from all over the country to see it working.”
The £40million of funding will be used to create a Combined Emergency Assessment Unit, which will help staff to assess patients more quickly and make sure they get the right type of treatment.
Mr Proctor added: “We have got a top quality leader in our A&E department in Dr Ed Smith and over the past year he has been developing a model for acute care that he believes will serve Scarborough brilliantly in the future. “Ed is perceived as a national expert but has not been able to deliver what he wanted in his own back yard.
“With all consultants in the same department, we will get a far more rapid understanding of what is wrong with the patients.
“We needed more space. The emergency department at Scarborough has been far too small to be able to deliver this, but we have never had the money available to do this. This funding is the results of 12 months of work and what we will build will be pretty pioneering. It will put us at the forefront of accident and emergency care.
“I am 90% sure that this will not be an extension, but will be a brand new building.”
The work is due to start in 2020 but the chief executive said he is hopeful this could be brought forward. Building the new department will take two years, but is not expected to cause any disruption to the existing A&E department. It is part of an £88.5million funding bid by the Humber, Coast and Vale Health and Care Partnership, which will be used at emergency departments in Scarborough, Grimsby, Scunthorpe and Hull. The £40m for Scarborough Hospital comprises £22m for the new unit and £18m for engineering infrastructure upgrade work, including work that will support the emergency department work.
“This is the news we’ve been waiting for and is fantastic for both patients and staff, signalling our commitment to investing in Scarborough Hospital,” said Mr Proctor. “This much-needed development means we can improve and streamline how patients are assessed, admitted and treated, which should reduce the time that people wait in the department, and ultimately improve patient safety. “This scheme will bring our total investment in our East Coast buildings and infrastructure to over £80 million since 2012.”