A NEW £6.25 million intensive care unit opens at Warrington Hospital next week – boosting the hospital’s capacity to care for critically ill patients.
The 16-bed unit has all of the latest equipment to provide the very best in monitoring and support for patients and has also been specially designed to help prevent the risk of infection.
It will cater for patients from Warrington, Halton and surrounding areas.
The unit is a major and long-awaited development for Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as intensive care beds have previously been split across three areas of the hospital in converted accommodation.
The trust had been unable to further expand the old facilities to meet the growing need for this kind of specialist care.
Now, the new unit brings the facilities together in one purpose built area and has initially increased the hospital’s critical care beds from 14 to 16 – with room to expand to more than 20 beds over the coming years. The light and airy new unit also houses a new family and waiting room, counselling rooms and staff areas and has the latest critical care equipment and central monitoring built in.
The unit is also specifically designed and equipped to help protect seriously ill patients from healthcare associated infections which they can be more vulnerable to.
It has two isolation cubicles with a special negative/positive air pressure system that prevents germs from getting in or out. All the monitoring equipment and medical gases in the unit are also suspended from ceiling mounted “pendants” above the beds which makes it much easier to clean the unit as the floor area is uncluttered.
Consultant anaesthetist Dr Andy Higgs said: “Over the last four to five years, our intensive care survival rates at Warrington are consistently better than most other hospitals in the UK.
“However, we have had to transfer many patients to other units in the region and further afield, because our old unit was too small to cope with the demand. The new unit provides a state-of-the-art facility for patients, their relatives and our staff along with the expansion in bed numbers that means many more people who fall critically ill will receive these high standards of care that they need closer to home.”
Catherine Beardshaw, Trust chief executive, said: “Since we received funding we have made it a priority to build the new unit as soon as possible so local people can benefit. If you or your family do need critical care in the future then you can be assured that you will be in one of the finest units in the country for your care.”
