WARRINGTON South MP Andy Carter has welcomed a new £6.3m 24/7 Same Day Emergency Care extension at the town’s hospital which will help take pressure off the A&E department.
On a visit to Warrington Hospital, Mr Carter, who remains focused on campaigning for a brand new £317m hospital for the town, was shown around the brand new Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) unit, which is now up and running and has started accepting patients. The unit is the latest stage of a £6.3million extension to the hospital designed to extend the range of urgent and emergency care services available to patients in Warrington.
Mr Carter, who has worked closely with Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust since first being elected, met with staff at the Same Day Emergency Care unit who will be treating patients referred from primary care. The unit is open 24 hours, offering rapid assessment, diagnosis and treatment and, if clinically safe to do so, discharge home on the same day.
The objective of the new unit is to ensure fewer patients are admitted to hospital by treating independently mobile and self-caring patients over the age of 18 who are not expected to require overnight stays.
Alongside running 24-7, the facility boasts 12 assessment centres, 3 treatment rooms, a triage room and 36-chair waiting space.
Following the visit, Mr Carter commented: “We’re making progress in updating the facilities at Warrington Hospital, I secured the funding some time ago for this unit. There were understandable delays in the construction because of Covid and I was grateful for the Prime Minister’s support when he came to visit the project in its early stages.
“It was really good to see patients being treated in clean, modern, clinical surroundings by an excellent team of dedicated staff. This unit will help to take pressure off the Accident and Emergency unit, and it will also relieve pressure on ward admissions into hospital – same-day treatment can be administered and then patients sent home to recover in their familiar surroundings.
“My focus remains on securing the £317m to build a new hospital for the town, we’ve submitted a strong bid to the Department for Health which they’re currently assessing. This new unit is a short-term fix to increase capacity, but we need a modern, larger hospital that can cope with the pressures we’re seeing from a population that has increased significantly since the current hospital was built.”
