SPONSORED BY HEALTH SECTOR NEWS
Midland Metropolitan Hospital set for 2022 opening
The Midland Metropolitan Hospital in Smethwick – on which construction was halted in January this year after the main contractor, Carillion, went into liquidation – will open in 2022, the Department of Health and Social Care has confirmed, after the Government and the Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust reached an agreement to complete its construction.
This will see the Government fund the remainder of the building work at what will be the first new hospital in England’s second largest urban area since 2010. An acute centre for the care of adults and children that will also offer maternity care and specialised surgery to approximately 750,000 residents, the hospital will incorporate ‘state-of-the-art’ diagnostic
Mobile ward for Hereford hospital
equipment, 15 operating theatres, and ‘at least 669 beds’.
The Trust says its completion will ‘unlock resources to invest more in local general practice and mental health services’. While the hospital was originally to be built under a PFI agreement, the contract to complete it will now be awarded via a direct contract with a building contractor.
Plasterboard for X-ray environments
With lead recently classified as a Substance of Very High Concern by the EU under REACH regulations, Knauf says its Safeboard is ‘the ideal lead-free plasterboard for X-ray environments’. Fully tested by the Health Protection Agency, Safeboard is an X-ray-resistant plasterboard with a barium sulphate core, said to effectively and significantly reduce the amount of lead needed within X-ray shielding partitions and, in many cases, to eliminate the need for its use. The distinctive yellow barium sulphate
core is ‘the vital ingredient which blocks X-rays across the entire surface area’. Each board is rigorously tested to ensure radiation tightness, making the product suitable for hospital, dental, and veterinary practice use. Installable without specialist construction skills, it can simply be scored and snapped, and then fixed into place, before the application of Knauf Safeboard Joint Filler, and finishing with Knauf Airless spray-applied plaster. Some 200 m2
of Knauf Safeboard used
at the Peninsula Dental School in Plymouth was given a vote of confidence by the NHS radiology department that witnessed the installation. The architect on the project, Rich Smith of Architects Design Group, said: “Safeboard was clearly superior to the alternatives.” Knauf Safeboard is fully fire-resistant, and achieves ‘excellent acoustic performance’.
Over £145 million in funding to address winter pressures Midlands will receive £8.82 m
The Government is to give ‘more than £145 m’ to NHS Trusts countrywide ahead of winter to improve emergency care. The funding, from the Department of Health and Social Care’s existing budget, will be spent on 81 new schemes to: n upgrade wards. n redevelop A&E departments. n improve same-day emergency care. n improve systems for managing the number of beds in use.
n provide an extra 900 beds. The University Hospital of North
18 Health Estate Journal October 2018
towards two additional wards on the Royal Stoke site, while East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust will receive £6.42 m to increase emergency care capacity at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford and the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate. At Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the money will assist emergency day care, managing the flow of patients through the hospital, and
An eight-bedded mobile ward from Vanguard Healthcare Solutions has recently arrived at Hereford County Hospital to help manage the increase in demand on hospital services, particularly as the Wye Valley NHS Trust prepares for winter pressures. Patient numbers attending the Hereford hospital’s Emergency Department suffering from major illnesses or injuries traditionally rise through winter, but this year this increase has continued throughout the spring and summer months. In 2016 the hospital admitted around 190 adult patients a week through its Emergency Department, but last year the figure rose to 225, and this year it stands at 250 – an almost 30 per cent increase in the past two years.
“Our priority is to ensure we deliver safe, efficient care during periods of high demand, particularly during the winter period,” said Wye Valley NHS Trust MD, Jane Ives. “The Vanguard unit provides a high quality clinical environment, and will help us now and as we prepare for winter pressures.” Located in the car park near the Radiotherapy Unit, the mobile hospital ward has been connected centrally to the main hospital to ensure easy access to other clinical areas. Vanguard has previously provided facilities to support the hospital including a mobile clinic and a mobile operating theatre.
improving the way ambulances hand over patients.
Earlier this year the Government provided £36.3 m to ambulance Trusts to prepare for winter. Health and Social Care Secretary, Matt Hancock (pictured), said: “Staff put in a huge amount of work preparing our health service for the challenge of treating more patients over winter, and it’s right that we make sure they have the resources they need so people receive the care they deserve.”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116