Work completed on £2.75 million redevelopment of emergency care department

The project, which started in 2018, has resulted in the creation of a brand new Ambulatory Care Unit, a brand new Children and Young People’s Emergency Department, an increase in rooms in the Emergency Department, separate purpose-built mental health rooms for adults and young people and a new purpose-built Ambulance Assessment Area.

Dr Pallav Bhatnagar, Lead Consultant for the Emergency Department at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, said: “The redevelopment of our Emergency Department and Urgent Care services is fantastic news for our population. It has given us additional space to work with. Now we can see more patients, more quickly and give them a better patient experience.”

The Urgent and Emergency Care team has recently appointed more nurses and doctors and assigned new roles of Physician Associates and Advanced Care Practitioners. These roles mean that some of the nursing and paramedic colleagues can now gain new qualifications, build on their experience and have an option of becoming clinicians. They play an important part in the delivery of care and can relieve some of the pressures on the doctors as well as opening the door to new careers.

Dr Bhatnagar, said: “Our staff are very excited with the new development and are looking forward to providing better and faster service to our patients. Despite challenges of Covid-19, we are proud to have achieved our performance target of 95% of patients seen and treated within 4 hours. We are one of very few in the country to do this. I am incredibly proud of the team. They have worked really hard and pulled together, along with the rest of the hospital, wider NHS and social care, in delivering best possible care to our sickest patients during such a challenging time.”