New facility a boon for staff and patients

MEDICAL ASSESSMENT UNIT NOW 'FIT FOR PURPOSE'

- By GARETH LIGHTFOOT

A NEW hospital emergency unit is helping to get patients seen and treated faster, say medical staff. The emergency assessment unit at the University Hospital of North Tees aims to get patients from ambulances or GPs into the right places quicker.

Staff say this will mean getting more patients home on the same day. The new "state-of-the-art" unit includes waiting areas, assessment rooms, a doctors' office, nurses' stations and patient toilets, and bumps the number of treatment areas up from eight to 18.

It was purpose-built at the Stockton hospital using £4m earned through the hospital's high performance in urgent care, and has been open since August.

The facility is a far cry from staff shoehorning care and treatment into old, smaller spaces, facilities which were not designed for such use. At one point, a clinic room was an old cupboard where patients and medical staff ended up "sitting on top of each other".

Kate Armitage, clinical director for acute medicine, said the new area, built partly in an old courtyard, was "absolutely critical" for flow through the hospital, taking pressure off the emergency department so patients who need treatment most get it without delay. It allows long-running work to continue with GPs and ambulance staff to bring patients "direct to medicine" rather than waiting in A&E.