Work officially begins on Scarborough Hospital's £47 million Urgent and Emergency Care Centre
Work has officially started on a new £47 million Urgent and Emergency Care Centre at Scarborough Hospital as part of a 'groundbreaking ceremony'.
It is the biggest single project ever undertaken by the York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals Trust, with the centre planned to open in the Spring of 2024.
Admissions at the Scarborough Emergency Department have increased at a yearly rate of around 5% for over a decade, and the centre will provide "much-needed" bed capacity.
It will include a two-storey new build which combines and will expand both the current emergency department and acute medical unit.
The building will include a dedicated diagnostic zone, providing CT scans, general X-rays and ultrasounds.
Though enabling works have already commenced, the ceremony was held on Friday 29 April to mark the official start of the project.
Among other key staff members, the day was attended by Simon Morritt, Chief Executive of the Trust and Ed Smith, Deputy Medical Director and Lead Consultant for Emergency Medicine.
"Our current emergency department was built in the 1980s and for a much small number of patients than we see regularly today," said Dr Smith.
"The first key aim of the development is to build something which is fit for purpose for today’s volume of activity but also the way we do healthcare today compared with how it was several decades ago."
Dr Smith also explained that the development is targeted to serve the area’s demographic, which includes the frail elderly and people from deprived backgrounds.
He said the hospital's proximity to nearby centres - which are 42-50 miles away from the nearest other hospitals - was also factored into the decision-making process.
Matron Zoe Jennings describes how the new centre will improve the patient experience.
"This development is extremely good news for our staff and for the community that Scarborough Hospital serves," said Mr Morritt when the project was formally approved earlier this month.
"It will move us forward significantly in the delivery of urgent and emergency services that are fit for purpose and of a quality that our staff, and our communities on the East Coast, can be rightly proud.
"It is the largest capital scheme ever undertaken by this trust, and demonstrates our commitment to the long term future of Scarborough Hospital."
The Trust says the "transformation of urgent and emergency care at Scarborough Hospital" was supported by funds secured in a bid launched by the Humber, Coast and Vale Integrated Care System (ICS) in December 2018.