Extension to KGH’s maternity department as part of RAAC works | Building a better University Hospitals of Northamptonshire

 Kettering General Hospital is receiving support from NHS England to build a new state-of-the-art extension to its maternity unit to offset the impact of RAAC concrete.

The two-storey extension is set to be built behind the existing maternity unit, Rockingham Wing, and will connect to it.

It will help the hospital’s maternity team to significantly improve the care it delivers each year to about 3,000 families and their babies.

The new extension, expected to be built over the next two years, will re-accommodate some key services and improve the hospital’s maternity facilities. Plans include:

Ground floor : A new location for the hospital’s Neonatal Unit (Special Care Baby Unit and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and a new Bereavement Suite – fulfilling the aims of the community Twinkling Stars Appeal launched in 2019. The bereavement suite is being designed with input from the Trust’s bereaved parents’ group and Twinkling Stars Appeal.

First floor : A new 32-bed maternity unit to accommodate mothers before and after they have given birth in the delivery suite. The delivery suite will remain in its current location in the ground floor of Rockingham Wing.

The University Hospitals of Northamptonshire’s (UHN) Director of Midwifery, Ilene Machiva, said: “This new extension will enable a major improvement to our maternity services for local people and a much-improved working environment for our maternity team.

“It will come after the significant disruption caused by the discovery of RAAC in the roof of our maternity unit which meant we had to relocate some of our services out of the Wing and delay our plans for improving other areas.

“The new first floor maternity ward will be a much-improved modern environment for the families we serve offering much larger rooms for our patients all with ensuite facilities.

“The ground floor will be used to rehome our SCBU and NICU and will be up to the highest quality standards expected of these care environments.”

In December 2023 surveys found that the hospital’s maternity unit had a roof made of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC). Further works in February 2024 found areas of concrete in poor condition which led to services being moved out of the top floor of the Wing to elsewhere in the building or other parts of the hospital.  The lower floors of the Wing were not affected so not all services had to move.

UNH Director of Strategy, Polly Grimmett, said: “We have been working closely with NHS England to look at the best solutions for addressing the issues in our maternity unit which is now almost 50 years old.

“The RAAC issue has meant we have had to think about how to address the direct care and capacity problems it has created and what is the best thing to do in the medium term.

“The extension is a good solution as it enables us to get services back into good and appropriate adjacent locations in a way which will improve the care we offer to local people.

“It has been designed with considerable input from clinical colleagues and is located to the rear of Rockingham Wing because this means it is close to our maternity theatres and delivery suite.”

Part of the upper floor of Rockingham Wing is being propped to make it completely safe and some hospital services may continue to use it. The work should be completed in March.

The Trust has already held an information session with local residents whose homes adjoin this part of the hospital site (on January 30 and February 1) and will continue to engage with them as plans progress. It has detailed landscape proposals to ensure the privacy of neighbours is maintained through the build period and once the new building is opened.