On Friday (February 20), a new acute medical unit was opened at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.
The new unit, located on level 5 of the Millennium Wing, is an area of the hospital where patients with medical conditions can be assessed, receive scans and tests, and be treated.
It also includes a new medical same day emergency care unit, which offers 24-hour access to specialist care for patients who do not need an overnight stay. This will be the first time the hospital can offer this.
It comes as part of a multimillion-pound modernisation of the urgent and emergency care at the hospital.
Sister Gladys Gonsalves, who has worked in the NHS for 27 years, cut the ribbon on the new facility in front of local MPs, city councillors, healthcare partners, and other guests.
She said: “Over the years, our unit has faced many challenges and undergone significant changes, with our services continually evolving to improve patient care. Having started my career when our medical assessment services were still based in the old Barry Building, it’s incredible to see how far we’ve come and the positive impact these developments are having on the patients we look after.”
It is hoped the new unit will help to reduce pressures on the hospital’s A&E department, taking patients who would otherwise have to wait there.
The Trust said when the hospital first opened in 1970, the A&E department was built to manage 20-30,000 patients a year, however it now regularly sees more than 100,000 annually.
The new unit is designed to care for around 500 patients every week, by a team that includes 12 acute medical consultants, 30 other doctors, and more than 110 nurses and healthcare assistants, plus therapists, pharmacists and other supporting colleagues.
Dr Andy Heeps, chief executive of University Hospitals Sussex, said: “Opening our new Acute Medical Unit is superb news for thousands of patients today, and even better for hundreds of thousands of future patients as it enables us to start renovating the main Emergency Department.
“Over the next three years, we will be modernising the old and tired A&E – but as the region’s Major Trauma Centre, we cannot close the department. Instead, we must complete the building works in phases alongside our teams providing life-saving care. It’s like conducting open-heart surgery on the hospital while caring for more than 300 A&E patients every day.
“So, I do want to be candid: this is going to be a challenging time. Our staff will be working in difficult, temporary and cramped circumstances, and patients and families will also experience this. We ask for their patience and understanding, because this is the only way we can deliver the excellent urgent and emergency care facilities our patients and hard-working teams deserve.”
The opening comes as test flights for the hospital’s new helideck are due to begin next week.
The Trust says the helideck will enable emergency teams to get patients arriving from across the region in the most serious life-threatening emergencies into the hospital faster than they can now.
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