Gloucestershire hospital creating mental health care rooms

Dr Helen Mansfield said the hospital's resuscitation area would double in size

Mental health crisis rooms will be included as part of a £17.3m hospital upgrade, it has been revealed.

Based in a new Emergency Department it will provide the right environment for treatment at the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital (GRH), the hospital said.

Work on the upgrade began in 2021, and a new dementia ward opened in August.

This, along with other projects such as a new Same Day Emergency Care unit, are designed to make GRH a "centre for excellence", it said.

Work on a new emergency department remains on course for a spring opening next year and once completed the new building will include 23 major patient cubicles, seven triage rooms, six minors treatment rooms, six paediatric rooms and dedicated patient bays.

This is as well as the specialist rooms for mental health and a fracture and orthopaedics unit with additional clinical rooms.

Medical director professor Mark Pietroni said the improvements would "provide the next generation of care" in Gloucester.

The works are part of £100m programme of investment to establish centres of excellence across Gloucestershire's NHS hospitals

Dr Helen Mansfield, emergency department consultant, said: "Once complete these new facilities will provide a purpose-built environment where we will be able to provide high quality care for our patients.

"Under the development we will also be providing specialised areas for patients in a mental health crisis."

She added: "We know that when patients are having a crisis, they benefit from being in the right environment.

"Having more secluded and private rooms will support this."

Contractors Kiers have built two new extensions onto the existing emergency department, which will open in the autumn, enabling work on re-designing the existing department to start ready for next summer.

The re-designed emergency department is set to open in spring 2023