Work has been completed on York Hospital’s new purpose built £2.5 million Intensive Care Unit (ICU), which will open mid-March.
The unit – part of a multi-million pound project to redesign and expand the emergency department’s urgent and emergency care facilities – will provide six new isolation beds to support critical care.
The project will also see the creation of a two-storey extension – to provide a new eight bedded resuscitation area – as well as improvements to the waiting room, consultation, and treatment areas.
Within the York and Scarborough NHS FT statement, the trust highlighted that the developments will provide ‘much-needed’ extra capacity and better care for patients.
Joe Carter, Consultant Anaesthetist in Critical Care at York Hospital, said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented demand on hospitals and in particular critical care units. Prior to the pandemic there was no spare critical care facility to allow for the increase in patient numbers requiring access to critical care interventions.
“In York, in line with much of the country, the only suitable care areas to expand into were operating theatres and post-anaesthesia care units.
“This has had a significant impact on patients as, in addition to the challenge of providing more critical care beds, the loss of theatre space adversely affected surgical patients. Theatre throughput was significantly reduced and the reduction in available critical care beds led to cancellation or postponement of many high-risk surgical procedures.”
Simon Morritt, Chief Executive, York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, added: “This new facility is fantastic news for York Hospital, our critical care team and patients both now and in the future. As we continue to have a considerable number of patients with Covid-19 in our hospitals it will ensure that we can care for Covid and non-Covid patients who need hospital treatment safely.”
