Work begins to create two new wards at Peterborough City Hospital

Work has begun to create two new wards at Peterborough City Hospital.

Office areas on the fourth floor will begin to be stripped on Monday (January 29) as part of the first step to creating two new inpatient wards to help care for more patients and cut waiting times.

The wards, which will contain 72 extra beds in total, are expected to be ready for next winter.

The North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust has been awarded £12.5m from a national funding initiative to convert the office space that was used by administration teams and some clinical staff.

From Monday, visitors to the hospital will see some changes to the front of the site while a compound is created between the main entrance and Emergency Department, where waste from the strip-out of offices will be transferred via a temporary external goods lift.

David Moss, Director of Estates and Facilities, said: “We’ve planned this project to ensure minimal disruption to patients, visitors and staff, but we would ask people to bear with us while this work is taking place.

“We do not expect any impact on traffic, but we have created some additional blue badge parking nearby to ensure disabled patients and visitors can still access the hospital via the shortest possible route.

“It is great to be starting this work, which will make a real difference to our bed capacity and patient waiting times.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank our administration and clinical teams for their support with this important project. They have relocated from their former offices on the fourth floor and are now working in a more agile way across our hospital sites and at home.”