Further improvements to Nottingham City Hospital are being considered as part of a programme of improvements at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust. The changes are set to include a new ward and additional operating theatres.
The proposals will be discussed at the Extraordinary Trust Board Meeting on Thursday, September 22. This new ward would create 24 additional inpatient beds to support the hospital's elective capacity and reduce waiting times. Elective surgery relates to procedures which are scheduled in advance due to a patient being in a stable condition and there not being an immediate medical emergency.
Duncan Hanslow, programme director for reconfiguration and transformation at NUH, said: "We have ambitious plans for the future of our hospitals through Tomorrow’s NUH. In the shorter term, the National Targeted Investment Fund money will enable us to increase our elective operating capacity at the City Hospital, significantly reducing waiting times for planned operations for patients across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.”
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The Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care System has secured, subject to approval, £35m National Targeted Investment Funding - money provided to help the NHS address long waiting lists resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. The first £15m of this money will enable a new 24-bed ward to be built at the Nottingham City Hospital.
The ward is expected provide specific ring-fenced capacity to support elective operations, and separate the elective and non-elective patient flows. NUH will seek approval from the Trust Board to progress with the plan for the ward, and, if approved, they hope to complete it by March 2023.
The Tomorrow's NUH programme, overarching improvements planned across the wider hospital estate, hopes to deliver elective care separately from emergency care by providing sustained elective activity waiting lists which will be reduced for specialities with the longest waits. The beds created by the new ward are hoped to be able to support elective capacity directly and indirectly for elective orthopaedics for 6 months to protect operating from operational pressures.
Elective activity is also expected to be supported, including HVLC, across breast, plastics and urology for 6 months to reduce waiting times. Gedling’s Conservative MP, Tom Randall, said: “During the 2019 election, I promised the residents of Gedling that I would fight for improved access to services they need to keep healthy and the redevelopment of both the QMC and City Hospitals will go towards delivering on that promise.
“I am delighted that improvements to the QMC and City Hospitals are part of the Conservative Government’s second biggest hospital investment programme. Part of this is the new 24-bed ward at the City Hospital campus for elective surgery, which is expected to create additional capacity of over 1,600 operations a year.
"This announcement is thrilling news and the new ward and extra capacity will enable residents from across Gedling and Nottinghamshire to access good elective surgery quicker.” However, whilst many people are pleased about the new ward, others feel there is still more to be done.
Mike Scott, spokesman for the Nottingham/Notts Keep Our NHS Public campaign group, said: "Keep Our NHS Public welcomes any proposal to expand NHS services, though it should be pointed out that these new beds only go a limited way in replacing the beds that have been closed down as a result of long-term under-funding. However, the elephant in the room is the lack of staff, which is a problem across the country.
"If there aren’t enough staff, from porters to doctors, the beds will be useless. This problem is recognised by the Trust, but we’re not convinced by the solutions outlined."
He added: "Another issue is the increase in patients going to private hospitals to avoid waiting lists. It’s not widely understood that most private hospitals have very few staff of their own and rely on paying a premium to divert NHS staff from their main jobs.
"This, of course, simply makes the NHS waiting lists longer. The Tory government has caused this problem and must now take action to solve it. In the short term, NHS staff could be obliged to offer any extra hours to the NHS before going to the private sector and in the longer term, the Nursing bursaries they scrapped must be reinstated and the cap on the number of Doctors in training must be lifted.”
Similarly, Labour MP for Nottingham North, Alex Norris, said: "News of extra capacity will be very well received, especially by those who have been waiting for a long time already. We now must make sure we address staff shortage across the NHS to make sure procedures can take place.”
Labour MP for Nottingham South, Lilian Greenwood, added: "I welcome the proposals in the Tomorrow’s NUH Programme, which include increasing the number of patients who will receive much needed surgery in our city, following years of chronic underinvestment by this Government. Despite the heroic efforts of staff, we now have the highest waiting times in the NHS’s history and the lowest patient satisfaction since 1997.
"Our NHS also has over 100,000 vacancies, meaning that patients are struggling to access vital GP and dental services too. We need to rebuild our NHS with the staff, equipment and modern technology needed to treat patients on time.”
With the wider TIF funding, NUH hope to create three additional operating theatres at the hospital to further strengthen the capacity of elective surgery. It is hoped that these improvements to the hospital would allow up to an additional 1,670 elective surgical cases each year.
As part of the Tomorrow's NUH programme, NUH hopes to build a new multi-storey car park at the Queen's Medical Centre and bring together all women's and children's services under one roof to create a Women and Children's Hospital at the site.
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