£19m For Listers New A&E Approved
31 May 2012, 06:00
A £19 million project to double the size of Lister Hospitals Accident and Emergency department has been given the go ahead from the Department of Health.
The hospital has undergone a huge amount of changes in the past few years as services move from the QEII site in Welwyn Garden City.
The changes to A&E are the start of the fourth and final phase costing £75 million in all.
Between 70 and 80 thousand people pass through the A&E in Stevenage each year- Peter Gibson from North East Herts NHS says these improvements will mean they get a better service:
"At the moment we've got doctors and nurses sort of moving between areas, this will allow us to have more discrete areas that patents will go directly into rather than perhaps waiting in a central area and be moved around a bit so it will actually make it more efficient"
Not only this, he claims the £19 million will be an investment because once the new A&E is completed in 2014 they will be saving £600,000 a month.
The new facility will have:
- Specialist emergency and urgent care services for both adults and children
- Improved Radiology services, including a new CT scanner
- Orthopaedic and fracture clinic- moved to the hospitals outpatients department with its own dedicated radiology support