What a fantastic December day it was when we heard that our bid to redesign ED was successful.
The government has announced that our bid for £20.3 million to radically redesign our Accident and Emergency Department has been successful.
Father Christmas had arrived early!
Following the development of the Emergency Treatment Centre area in 2017, we’d always planned to follow this with a second phase that would look at the rest of the ED areas. When the invite to bid came along it was an opportunity not to be missed.
After submitting a bid in July 2018 we waited nervously for news. There were so many things we wanted to improve for patients and staff. The current layout and design of our ED just doesn’t support patient flow. It’s no longer big enough for the numbers coming through and we don’t have enough resus bays. Its disjointed and compartmentalised areas contribute significantly to delays in being seen, poor patient experience and inefficient use of staff resources.
We all desperately wanted the opportunity to redesign and believed Dudley deserved that opportunity.
The monies are ‘not in the bank’ yet but with specialist advice to support us we’re storming ahead with the development of the business case to secure funds to:
- substantially refurbish and reconfigure the existing Emergency Department to provide expanded and fit for purpose resuscitation facilities;
- provide a fit for purpose larger majors unit, an improved paediatrics unit, and a new main waiting area and reception for ambulatory care through a significant internal remodel to the existing ED footprint and new build extension to the front of the existing department if required;
- improve ambulance triage / handover area;
- provide new staff facilities including offices, staff changing facilities, which will have been dislodged by improvement and increase in clinical spaces by the first two bullet points above;
- provide dedicated diagnostic facilities including a CT scanner and ultrasound facilities;
- include a frailty unit within the ED which will take direct admissions from ambulances for some of our most vulnerable patients;
- provide a dedicated area to support patients with mental health needs;
- add a pharmacy dispensary facility to include dispensary, controlled drug dispensing, over the counter advice and sales, counselling area and waiting area and
- improve the bereavement suite.
Engagement events have kicked off with over 50 staff attending one of the drop in sessions that have taken place so far, contributing their niggles and ideas for improving the area. Thank you to everyone who has ‘dropped in’. All of your contributions will be considered for the final design and where they’re not we’ll feedback with why not.
If you haven’t ‘dropped in’ yet there is a further session on 5th September in the ED Seminar Room between 1pm & 4pm. Please make the effort to drop in anytime between these hours, your contributions are valuable.
And don’t think we’ve forgotten to talk to our patients – we’re working with our patient experience team to ask patients what they think and how they think we can improve their experience at a dedicated patient engagement session.
We’re at the very early stage of the process with what’s called the OBC (Outline Business Case) due to be reviewed by Trust Board in Feb 2020 so keep your eye on the Hub for more updates.
If you’ve got any queries or ideas you’d like to share, please pass them to Juliegardiner@nhs.net