Birmingham: hospital office space now wards to tackle wait lists

Matron Rachel Green opened the new wards, saying they would provide "bright, new and modern environments for patients"

A hospital trust with the longest waiting lists in England has converted offices into two new wards in a bid to clear a backlog caused by Covid-19.

University Hospitals Birmingham is the largest hospital trust in the country and has treated more coronavirus patients than any other.

More than 180,000 patients are currently on its waiting lists, 30,000 of which have waited more than a year.

In all, the trust plans to refurbish or build seven new wards.

The first two opened on Monday. Work to convert them at the old Queen Elizabeth Hospital began five months ago.

Wards East 2a and East 2b will provide 47 extra beds.

While they will not take surgical cases, moving patents into them from the new QE hospital will allow the trust to increase the number of procedures, Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Brotherton said.

"We can deliver several hundred more operations a month as a result of these two wards opening," he said.

Work to convert the offices into wards began five months ago

Waiting lists have crept up through the pandemic.

Last summer, planned operations were cancelled altogether for two days as staff saw an increasing number of Covid patients.

Mr Brotherton said the pandemic had had a "huge effect on our ability to provide other treatments".

In the seven days up to and including 30 January, 384 new patients were admitted with Covid-19.

While down from 433 a week earlier, it was (by some margin) the highest number of any hospital trust in England.

Five more wards will be built or converted by the trust in the coming months.

Work on two new modular units at the Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield are under way and plans for another two wards at Heartlands Hospital have also begun.

In all seven new wards will be repurposed or built by the hospital trust