12:43pm Wednesday 17th March 2010
By Manisha Mistry
NEW designs for the expansion of health services at the QEII Hospital have been unveiled by the primary care trust.
Patient groups, councillors and representatives from other organisations in Welwyn Hatfield met with NHS East and North Hertfordshire last week to reveal plans for the new local general hospital.
Under the proposals the site will provide a large proportion of the non-acute services that are currently delivered at the Welwyn Garden City hospital including outpatient services, diagnostics, therapy services and ante and post natal care.
A massive shake-up of healthcare provision is proposed across east and north Hertfordshire, possibly resulting in the loss of some areas of care from the QEII.
However through consultations it has been recognised these are the particular services which people use more often and will remain in Welwyn Garden City to minimise unnecessary travel for local people.
The new hospital site will also include an urgent care centre for the treatment of serious, but not life threatening illnesses and injuries.
Jacqui Bunce, programme director for delivering quality healthcare for Hertfordshire said the event last week was a good opportunity for stakeholders to discuss the design concepts of the new hospital.
She said: “It is exciting to have an architect in place and to begin sharing their initial design ideas with the community.
“We have appointed Penoyre and Prasad because of their extensive experience of designing high quality health care buildings, particularly those on a similar scale to ours.”
Ms Bunce added: “Our vision is to develop a new hospital meets the needs of local people and makes best use of the resources we have available.
“We also want a hospital that is sustainable, fits in well with the community and is flexible enough to respond to future developments in healthcare.
“We are now speaking to doctors, nurses and others to make sure that we develop clinical facilities that are absolutely right for patients.”
Construction for the new site is scheduled to begin in 2011 with completion expected towards the end of 2013.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.stalbansreview.co.uk/trade_directory/