The highly anticipated new Daycase Surgical Unit for Wye Valley NHS Trust at Hereford County Hospital has been opened and is now receiving patients.

The elective surgical unit is cutting waiting lists for patients in Herefordshire and the surrounding area by offering a mix of day case surgeries, including urology, orthopaedic, dental, ENT, gynaecology, cataract, and general surgery.

Located in the main hospital grounds, the positioning of the £21 million unit is designed to minimise travel times for patients and staff.

The introduction of state-of-the-art equipment in a purpose-built, dementia-friendly, environment will vastly improve patients’ experiences and will provide a fit-for-purpose and therapeutic environment to deliver modern healthcare – better for patients and staff members.

Mehmood Akhtar, consultant urological surgeon and associate chief medical director (Surgery), said: “This new facility has the potential to make a huge difference for our patients who will be able to be seen and treated in modern, state-of-the-art facilities.

“We appreciate the inconvenience cancelled procedures can have on patients and this new facility will go some way to help prevent the need to delay care and treatment. This is an incredibly exciting development for us.”

Alan Dawson, WVT chief strategy and planning officer, said: “The demolition of the last of our 1940s hutted wards has made way for this unit which will effectively be a standalone facility.

“It will be run in a way that means it won’t be affected by sudden pressures in our Emergency Department, which have curtailed routine elective procedures in the past.”

The two-storey centre includes pre-op waiting rooms, assessment rooms, two operating theatres, recovery and a dedicated cataract suite. Furthermore, the Daycase unit also houses a main reception and number of staff offices. 

A dedicated environment for this type of surgery will reduce pressures on staff by moving elective surgeries that currently take place in the main hospital to this new building, improving patient outcomes, reducing waiting times and boosting productivity.

The new facility has been constructed by Midlands based contractor, Speller Metcalfe, which has a longstanding history of working in and around Hereford. The project has been built with sustainability in mind with it set to achieve BREEAM ‘Excellent’, which is a sustainable building standard and demonstrates both the Trust’s and project team’s commitment to building sustainably.

Mark Hudgeon, Director at Speller Metcalfe said, “We’re pleased to see the new Daycase unit officially handed over and now in use; we know how much this new facility will positively impact the services provided by Wye Valley NHS Trust.”

This new facility comes as part of a government-backed scheme to deliver almost two million additional routine operations across a number of facilities nationally.

The scheme was the first procured through the new ProCure23 national healthcare framework for the design and construction of NHS capital projects. The framework is a collaboration between NHS England and Crown Commercial Services, with an anticipated cumulative spend of £9bn during its lifetime.

Pic captions

• Theatre staff working in the new Daycase Surgical Unit cut the ribbon to declare the new facility open 

• The cataract theatre in the new Daycase Surgical Unit

Ends

Note to editors

For more information, please contact Kim Davies, Speller Metcalfe Communications and Engagement Manager on 07851 191558, kim.davies@spellermetcalfe.com, Annabelle Ingram, Communications & Marketing Officer, Annabelle.ingram@spellermetcalfe.com, 07810 601765 or John Burnett, WVT Communications Manager, on 01432 355444.

Speller Metcalfe

Speller Metcalfe has a solid reputation as a leading regional contractor within the Midlands and South West regions, with a key focus on providing innovation and excellence in construction. Established in 1995 by Steve Speller and Andy Metcalfe we are proud of our family roots, which provide the foundation to the non-adversarial approach and teamwork ethos that run throughout the business.

Our award-winning construction company has key experience in Integrated Project Insurance (IPI), BREEAM, Passivhaus and BIM and has delivered some of the UK’s most innovative and sustainable projects.
http://www.spellermetcalfe.com/

Wye Valley NHS Trust

• Wye Valley NHS Trust is a provider of health services across Herefordshire and beyond. The Trust exists to improve the wellbeing, independence and health of the people we serve.
• By working closely with our partners, we can make good our promise to deliver a quality of care we would want for ourselves, our families and our friends.
• With an estimated annual turnover of around £295 million, we employ around 3,000 staff. We aim to build new relationships between our staff, patients, service users and their carers with the wider community.