Wolverhampton New Cross A&E will treat 40,000 extra patients a year
Almost 40,000 extra A&E patients every year are predicted to flood an under-pressure Black Country hospital in the coming years, bosses have said – as plans for a new £30 million Emergency Centre are finalised.
The number of patients treated at New Cross Hospital's A&E unit have rocketed by eight per cent in the past five years and will continue to grow further, health bosses fear.
But the new centre, for which plans will be formally approved by trust members on Monday, will alleviate the crisis, chiefs at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust hope.
They plan that up to half of those 40,000 extra patients will be treated in primary care in a separate department in the £30m three-storey centre.
Bosses admitted the current A&E 'cannot cope' with demand but the new one will be three times bigger.
In 2013/14, 108,811 patients attended A&E. By 2025/26, this is predicted to rise to around 145,000. However, bosses will send up to 20,000 of those to a primary care department in the emergency centre, spreading out the workload for staff.
The Emergency Centre will also include a walk-in centre, with an existing one at Showell Park being transferred over.
An initial proposal for the centre was approved by planning chiefs earlier this month. And now the full business case is going through the final approval stages, ahead of a predicted completion date of November 2015.
The business case states that long waiting times in the existing A&E – branded 'unfit for purpose' by chief executive David Loughton – and a high number of patients being treated in corridors were big factors in the necessity for a new A&E.
It adds: "The existing emergency department is no longer fit for purpose with the key issue for the department being the lack of space for reorganising services and physical size of cubicles and diagnostic space.
"Concern about the sustained rise in activity and resultant pressure on performance, together with safety issues particularly where patients are waiting in corridors due to lack of space, has focused the need for a new facility.
"The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust is committed to a vision for the redevelopment of the clinical services provided on the New Cross Hospital site to ensure that it can appropriately address the demand on its services from its local population.
"Approval of this case will be a significant step in the development of the New Cross Hospital site and will form a key enabler for the future development of emergency services and other key services on the site."
Bosses have also expressed concerns at the trust regularly falling below a key national target of seeing 95 per cent of its A&E patients within four hours of them arriving.
Ambulance attendances have also risen, with New Cross seeing record numbers coming through its doors in the past year.
