Today we will be welcoming our first patients to our new £7.2 million Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) and Integrated Acute Assessment (IAAU) units at Scunthorpe General Hospital.
The opening of these units marks the final phase of our £65.2 million investment in improving urgent and emergency care across northern Lincolnshire, providing us with modern, well-equipped facilities that are purpose-built to meet the needs of our communities for years to come.
Mirroring the units opened in Grimsby earlier this year, the new facilities are located directly next to our existing Emergency Department, the units are designed to work in harmony with each other, helping to reduce demand and waiting times by making it easier for you to be seen by our expert clinicians.
Instead of going into the Emergency Department and waiting to be admitted to a ward to be seen by these clinicians, you can be referred straight to the units by your GP, 111, the ambulance service, Emergency Department staff or our community teams.
Emergency and Acute Care Matron, Lisa Norcup, said: “This is a fantastic space, which will be so much better for our patients.
“We have a team of senior clinicians from a range of disciplines based in these units, who are here for you if you’re ill enough to need to come to hospital, but you’ve not been involved in an accident or emergency and don’t need to be treated in our Emergency Department.
“We can you direct you straight to the best clinician to meet your needs and provide you with the same high levels of care you’d get in the Emergency Department – assessing you, investigating the best course of treatment and getting that treatment started.
“This means that we may not need to admit you into hospital at all and, if we do, it’s likely to be for a shorter time.”
Group Chief Delivery Officer, Shaun Stacey, added: “I am very proud of our emergency care facilities – they are some of the best in the country – and these units here at Scunthorpe really are the icing on the cake.
“They look fantastic and have been designed in conjunction with our staff, so that they have the space, facilities and equipment they need to do what they do best. For example, there are more examination rooms and side rooms than we currently have, which helps us to isolate patients we’re caring for who have infectious conditions and, overall, patients have a much better experience because of how these units are laid out.
“The use of a combination of Same Day Emergency Care facilities and bespoke units where we can assess, investigate, and begin the treatment of acutely unwell patients as part of our wider urgent and emergency care provision, can make a significant difference to the experience of our patients.
“For example, there has been an approximate 13% increase in the number of people coming to our Grimsby Emergency Department in last 12 months but waiting times have not increased – and there’s actually been around a 20% reduction in triage times.
“This is partly because over the past 12 months, we’ve seen an approximate 25% growth in number of patients going through our SDEC service.
“This combination approach also enables us to get our patients home more quickly than we would if they were admitted as inpatients and we can also be flexible in how we use the space, so that we have additional space available at times of high demand.”
Mr Stacey added: “Finally, I would like to thank all the teams who have been involved in getting us to this point, along with our construction partners, Kier. From helping to shape the design and driving the construction of the units, through to getting everything ready for our first patients, it’s taken a lot of time, hard work and dedication. You can all be extremely proud of what you have achieved.”
Dan Doherty, regional director for Kier Construction North & Scotland, said: “I am thrilled that the new units at Scunthorpe General Hospital are now ready to welcome patients. Kier is committed to creating high quality, modern healthcare facilities and these new units will transform patient experience.”