How much has the Trust invested in the new Urgent and Emergency Care Centre (UECC)?

The new Urgent and Emergency Care Centre, is the largest capital scheme ever undertaken by the Trust at a cost of £47m investment.  The new centre, with an integrated critical care floor for intensive care and coronary care, almost doubles the current space.  The investment includes upgrades to the site infrastructure.

How big is the Urgent and Emergency Care Centre?

With 3,120 square metres of space on each floor, the centre will be a third larger than the existing facilities.

When will the Urgent and Emergency Care Centre open to patients?

We are looking to  move patients across in late September 2024.

Are there more beds in the Urgent and Emergency Care Centre?

It is the same number of beds numbers, but we will have a new healthcare model which means 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.

Will the electrical infrastructure be able to cope with the extra demand?

To provide power to the Urgent and Emergency Care Centre and to give resilience and future capacity to the rest of the site, we have upgraded the high voltage and low voltage electrical services as part of this project.  Additionally, as part of the build we have installed two standby generators which, if needed, can generate 2.2 megavolts amperes (mva) - which is equivalent to powering 5,000 homes!

How is the building heated and cooled?

The building is fully ventilated by a large number of separate systems.   This allows us to temperature control the whole building in zones or individual rooms i.e. Critical Care rooms.

How would the Urgent and Emergency Care Centre operate if we had another pandemic?

The building is mechanically and operationally designed to enable us to work in two separate clinical streams (hot and cold).  This is supported by the ventilation air flow streams that will extract contaminated air and replace it with filtered clean air ensuring there is high- and low-pressure areas to force the air to go in the right direction.