Bosses approve £30m Wolverhampton A&E centre
Bosses at a Black Country hospital have given the go-ahead for a new £30 million A&E centre – despite still having to find £10 million of funding.
However, the chief financial officer at New Cross Hospital, in Wolverhampton, said the board is confident it will be able to get the money to make the project a reality.
The move to formally approve the plans for the new centre was made at a special board meeting of the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust – with the caveat that the funding is found.
Speaking after the meeting, Kevin Stringer, chief financial officer at the hospital, said: "There is £10 million to get but we are confident that we will get that from the Department of Health hopefully.
"Everyone who has seen that ward knows that it needs something doing to it, so we are being positive that the Department of Health will put its hand in its pocket and help us."
David Loughton, chief executive, said: "The full business case is subject to sourcing the full £10m from the Department of Health, or an alternative source of funding."
Dr Jonathan Odum, medical director, made a presentation to the board outlining the changes made to the business case since it was first presented in October 2013.
Dr Odum said the extra £10m was to help build the new centre quickly.
It was originally set to open in May 2016, but will now open in November next year.
The business plan said that almost 40,000 more patients are expected to flood in over the next few years. Mr Loughton said the current centre is not fit for purpose, and is already seeing more patients than it was built to handle.
The business plan was unanimously agreed by the board, and will now go in front of Trust Development Authority on May 15.
