Royal Lancaster Infirmary opens mobile operating theatre

A hospital criticised for delays in A&E admissions is setting up a mobile operating theatre to deal with them.

The Royal Lancaster Infirmary has postponed a small number of non-urgent operations while the unit is set up.

On Wednesday the health watchdog said poor admissions planning could cause A&E delays.

Earlier in the month The Care Quality Commission (CQC) also criticised staffing levels following an unannounced inspection in December.

The University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMBT) hopes the unit will be fully operational by the end of February.

Trust chief executive Tony Halsall said: "The introduction of the mobile unit will give us valuable extra capacity to ensure there are enough beds available for emergency patients.

"In the short term I regret that we will also need to postpone some non-urgent operations."

It is postponing non-urgent operations while the changes are being made to provide an extra 34 beds.

The trust is phoning patients whose operations need to be postponed such as hernia repair, the removal of cysts, some investigative procedures, daycase surgery and non-urgent elective gynaecology procedures. Day case eye surgery will not be affected.