A £4.5m investment at St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester will see the creation of a new Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) unit that has been designed to improve outcomes for patients.
Same day emergency care is one of the many ways the NHS is working to provide the right care, in the right place, at the right time for patients.
Clinical lead for Acute Medicine at St Richard’s Hospital, Dr Neal Gent, said: “Our new SDEC unit will be an enormous improvement on what we currently have.
“The development will vastly increase our ability to assess, investigate and treat patients without them having to be admitted overnight onto a ward and hospital bed.”
The SDEC unit will provide a waiting area, two treatment rooms, two consultation rooms, and 15 bays, with both trolley and chair spaces, for assessment and treatment.
Work on the unit has already started and is scheduled for completion next year.
Dr Gent added: “The new unit will also allow us to offer our staff better training and career development, with a team of Advanced Care Practitioners now enhancing the nursing team.”
The SDEC is in keeping with NHS Long Term Plan and its aim to provide such services at hospitals for at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week.
The locally funded improvement works at St Richard’s emergency department come at the same time as national funding for a new Urgent Treatment Centre and SDEC at Worthing Hospital has been received.
Additionally, a separate three-year £48m redevelopment of the Acute Floor at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton is also now due to begin.