Northampton General's new Paediatric Emergency Department gets the royal treatment

The Princess Royal has officially opened Northampton General Hospital's new Paediatric Emergency Department.

Before visiting the new £2.9m new facility, Princess Anne met senior hospital leaders, clinicians and volunteers who had been part of the county’s Covid-19 response.

“It has its own entrance, which is entirely separate, and is a huge improvement onthe previous paediatric area which only had three rooms and was located inside thehospital’s main ED,” Michelle Coe said.

Other facilities include a dedicated triage room, three waiting areas, one of which is aseparate space for adolescents, four trolley assessment spaces and six assessmentrooms.

“The new department will help us to provide the right kind sensitive care for childrenand adolescents and means our hard-working staff have a much-improved workingenvironment,” she added.

The hospital received Government funding to build the new department in August 2020. It took 7 months to build and the opened its operations at the beginning of August.

Since then 2,800 children and adolescents have been through its doors, which is an average of 70 per day.