STAFF, patients, and visitors at a North Yorkshire hospital will soon be able to step away from the wards to a new terrace which is being created as part of a £47 million investment in its emergency department.

Scarborough Hospital is building a new Urgent and Emergency Care Centre, which will offer high quality modern facilities and create more space.

The York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust says the number of patients attending the department have increased at a rate of around five per cent a year for over a decade.

"The £47m investment in the town’s emergency care facilities will see a new centre with an integrated critical care floor for intensive care and coronary care that almost doubles the current space," said a spokesperson.

"It will also mean patients from minor to complex needs can be looked after in the unit by one team of healthcare professionals working together ,who will see more patients as quickly and safely as possible. The centre will have its own dedicated diagnostic zone providing CT scans, general X-ray and ultrasound."

They said the project would include a two-storey new build combining and expanding the current emergency department, same day emergency care, the acute medical unit and improve outcomes for the frail elderly. 

"It will ensure some of the poorliest patients in the hospital are cared for in one integrated clinical ward environment rather than being moved to other wards,"they said.

"The second floor will house critical care services bringing together all critical care patients and staff in one location. It will increase bed capacity which will help relieve the pressure on beds elsewhere in the Trust.

"The scheme also includes work to address essential site-wide engineering infrastructure which will see huge improvements to the electrical system, ventilation and drainage."

Trust chief executive Simon Morritt said the development was 'extremely good news' for staff and the community, adding: "It will move us forward significantly in the delivery of urgent and emergency services that are fit for purpose and of a quality that our staff, and our communities on the East Coast, can be rightly proud."

The new centre is planned to open in the spring of 2024.

As The Press has reported previously, work has also started on a £15 million extension to York Hospital, which will expand and reconfigure the emergency department’s urgent care facilities to increase capacity and improve patient care.

It will include a new eight bed resuscitation area, improvements to both the waiting room and the consultation and treatment areas, 12 new assessment and treatment cubicles where staff can meet patients when they arrive, and a dedicated safe room for mental health patients.

The extension is expected to be completed by early April 2023.