Inside the department store converted into a clinic in bid to ease pressured NHS waiting lists
NHS Nightingale hospitals kit has found an unlikely new home - in a department store. ITV News Meridian's Richard Slee reports from Poole.
A mammogram machine will soon be ready to whirr into action in what was until very recently a department store's furniture floor.
Where couches and beds once greeted shoppers, a breast screening machine now sits on the top floor of the Beales at the Dolphin Shopping Centre in Poole.
The budding clinic is now one of 40 new diagnostic hubs being built around the country -and the first to be placed inside a shopping centre.
It is being built using kit from the decommissioned NHS Nightingale hospitals introduced during the peak of the UK's coronavirus lockdown.
The idea is to provide outpatient diagnostic services to ease pressure on local waiting lists, the University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust says.Its breast screening unit is just one of the departments being built at the retail attraction on the Dorset coastline.
Once it's up and running, the hub will initially offer dermatology, orthopaedics and ophthalmology appointments, along with breast and abdominal aortic aneurysm screening, across 16 consulting rooms.
Ashleigh Boreham, who set up the first Nightingale hospital in London and is now in charge of the project, told ITV News Meridian: "The key thing about this is patients flow, logistics flow and data flow.
"And all of it comes together in one place, in one conversation - which is really great."This new outpatients assessment clinic is also good news for the shopping centre, which is expecting to see a huge increase in footfall as it offers the new services.The Dolphin Centre's Greg Westover says: "We're working with the council to provide a skills and learning centre. We're giving space away for innovative retail start ups to come to this scheme.
"All really good positive messages for people to come into the shopping centre again - not just for retail."Hundreds of people a day are expected to attend the new clinic - and 50 of those patients will have been invited to have a breast screening.
Ashleigh Boreham, who set up the first Nightingale hospital in London, shares the plans with ITV News Meridian:
Lisa Bisset, head of Dorset Breast Screening says: "There are currently 14 thousand people in Dorset waiting to have a mammogram and this new bit of kit will play a huge role in reducing that backlog.""I'm hoping that this will be a big incentive.
"It's light, it's airy, it's in a lovely space, it's convenient and it's in a shopping centre so we are hoping the younger demographic who are the people who are busy, who are working, they are mums, they can add this on to something else and get their breast screening done while they are shopping."The new unit is set to open in December.