Arrowe Park Hospital: New £28m emergency unit to be built

Arrowe Park Hospital says its news emergency unit will have the best clinical expertise

A new casualty unit is to be built at an under-pressure hospital which currently warns A&E patients it will turn them away if they do not need emergency treatment.

Arrowe Park Hospital in the Wirral, Merseyside, is to spend £28m transforming its emergency and urgent care facilities.

It said the redevelopment would provide "the very best clinical expertise".

Work on the project is due to start next summer.

Wirral Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, said it would combine the emergency and urgent treatment units, which are currently separated, into one building.

Architects and builders have been appointed and the new facility is due to open in March 2024.

"The centre will have the very best clinical expertise and facilities to provide the safest and most clinically effective care for urgent and emergency patients," a spokesman said.

The hospital is one of the North West's busiest and its emergency unit, the only one in Wirral, serves 320,000 people.

An artist's impression of how the "Majors" entrance will look in Arrowe Park's new emergency unit

In October, the trust began a pilot scheme to ease pressure on A&E services.

Its website warns patients: "We will change the way we deal with arrivals, with anyone attending whose care is not an emergency being directed to an alternative service when safe to do so."

It says non-emergency patients will be directed to an urgent care, walk-in or minor injury centre, or their local GP.

The new facility promises to have better access for ambulances, and allow greater social distancing.

'Simpler process'

The trust's chief executive Janelle Holmes said it was the "biggest investment at Arrowe Park Hospital since it was built almost 40 years ago and shows our commitment to enhancing the care we provide to those who are in most urgent need".

"The work will completely transform Wirral's only emergency department and also the provision of urgent care for local people," she said.

The new urgent care centre aims to provide faster diagnosis and treatment for patients whose conditions allow them to return home the same day.

Medical director and deputy chief executive, Dr Nikki Stevenson, said: "We are very excited about the development, which will create a much simpler process and a better patient journey for those who visit our emergency or urgent care facilities."

The money for the scheme has come from funding the government announced in 2019 to improve NHS buildings.