We’ve just opened our new Orthopaedic Outpatient Centre – after a successful project which saw the new facility being completed and fitted out in just four months.
Ground work for the new centre started in February this year, with the modules making up the building arriving in March, before internal fit-out was completed earlier this month.
The orthopaedic outpatient teams will provide care for their first patients tomorrow in a spacious new facility which has nine consultation and examination rooms and a modernised plaster bay, as well as improved staff office and rest areas.
We worked with constructors Darwin Group on the new centre which is designed as a temporary building that will support the hospital and local patients while the planning and construction of the full new James Paget hospital takes place in the years ahead.
Completion of the new centre means that our hospital has brand new orthopaedic facilities, including a hi-tech operating theatres building and a modern ward with en-suite single rooms, all located next to each other, for the benefit of our patients.
The transfer of orthopaedic outpatient services to the new centre frees up space in the main hospital building, which we will now use to develop our Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) services.
SDEC is a way of providing care that allows specialists to assess, diagnose and treat patients on the day of arrival, who would otherwise be admitted to hospital for an overnight stay.
Financed through capital funding from NHS England, the project will see the fracture clinic transformed into a new SDEC facility, which will increase the number of clinical spaces for patients from nine to 20.
The new facilities are scheduled to open in the autumn, helping us see patients arriving at our Emergency Department more quickly, as well as preventing unnecessary admissions.
