Building work to bring Rotherham a new Emergency Centre is progressing well as patients are asked to support the project by using emergency services wisely.
Each Winter Rotherham Hospital sees an increase in the number of patients attending its Accident and Emergency Department (A&E) and figures show a number of these patients could have got the care they needed elsewhere.
Chris Holt, Chief Operating Officer at TRFT, said: “On busy days patients do end up waiting in A&E to be seen. It’s vital that our community supports us in making sure A&E is available for those with urgent or life-threatening conditions.
“If you have minor or non-urgent ailments like coughs, colds or flu-like symptoms please see a pharmacist, get advice from NHS 111 or the walk in centre based within Rotherham Community Health Centre on Greasbrough Road or call your GP.practice for advice.”
To pave the way for the new Emergency Centre, which opens in 2017, and to ensure that patients get the right care, quickly in the right place, The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust which runs Rotherham Hospital, is underway with a wide-arching scheme of transformational work.
Part of this work is a series of ward moves within the hospital, helping ensure patients get care delivered by the right expert in the right place in a quick, effective and safe way. Ward moves aren’t unusual in the NHS and the Trust has well-established procedures for moving patients safely around the hospital. The latest of these ward moves, which will take place on 23 November, will see the current accident and emergency area move temporarily across the corridor at the hospital to a refurbished area.
The A&E department will stay then in its new location at the hospital until the new Emergency Centre opens. During this time there will be no changes to the way that services are delivered. The new area will be fully equipped with the right teams to deliver high quality life-saving care.
Chris Holt added: “Those who do need urgent care will notice very few differences once they are inside the building; patients will still enter in the same way and will be clearly directed through to the new area where they will continue to receive the care they need.”
More information about the Emergency Centre and about getting the right care in Rotherham this Winter can be found here www.rotherhamemergencycentre.nhs.uk or you can follow the progress of Rotherham’s new Emergency Centre on twitter here: @RotherhamEC
