Kettering General Hospital (KGH) has opened a new paediatric outpatients clinic – marking a reopening of the services on its central site.
The £185,000 clinic will be suitable for face-to-face consultations, according to the hospital, after a year during which paediatric outpatient services were delivered away from the main KGH site.
The new clinic includes five rooms for face-to-face examinations, as well as space for paediatric orthopaedics clinics, a reception with a socially-distanced waiting area, and an office.
The nearby Nene Park and Nuffield Diagnostic Centre sites had been used while Kettering’s former Paediatric Outpatients area was ‘transformed’ into a paediatric A&E department. This change was part of its COVID-19 pandemic response and remains in place, with Kettering’s new clinic located close by.
The hospital also announced that the paediatric orthopaedic clinics that had been running in the Frank Radcliffe Clinic at KGH will now take place in the new clinic, too.
Siobhan Roe, Matron for Outpatient Services at KGH, said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that we have had to completely transform the way we have delivered paediatric outpatient services to maintain high standards of safety.
“Our purpose built area, in the Foundation Wing, had to become a paediatric A&E, literally overnight…so that we could separate children’s A&E into an area with less footfall.
“Where possible we have then delivered many children’s outpatient appointment through telephone and video clinics. But of course there are always occasions where face-to-face examinations and discussions are needed.
“Over the last year these clinics have been held at our locations in Irthlingborough and Corby. We are now very pleased to announce that we have a newly refurbished area on the main KGH site where we can hold face-to-face appointments for some of the 10,000 children who need paediatric outpatient care.”
