KGH completes £800k refurb of short-stay medical assessment unit
Kettering General Hospital has completed an £800,000 refurbishment of its short-stay medical assessment unit to help meet the challenges of Winter during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Middleton Assessment Unit – also known as MAU – was closed on October 20 with its work taken on by another ward until it reopened for business on December 15.
The ward – which dates back to 1995 - needed urgent modernisation because it was very cramped by modern standards with facilities for staff and patients that needed significant improvements.
Matron for Urgent Care Wards Louise Hyde said: “Before the pandemic we had 26 beds in this area and we were assessing about 150 patients per week.
“The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of having more space between beds and the importance of social distancing of patients to enable good infection control.
“In order to achieve this we have reduced the number of beds in MAU from 26 to 18 and have used some of the extra space we have created to provide more ensuite bathroom facilities for our patients.
“Other improvements have included better working spaces for our doctors, therapists and all of our other visiting teams who support patient care and discharge.
“Part of the refurbishment has included installing much-improved modern ventilation in the area which gives better airflow and temperature control – this was a ward which got extremely hot during the summer.”
MAU is a short-stay medical ward. Patients are admitted to it directly by GPs or via A&E. After assessment patients may be able to be discharged but many need to be admitted to one of the hospital’s main wards for further care.
It is currently based in an old part of the hospital designed for offices off the main hospital corridor. It is some distance from A&E and was converted into clinical use because of rising demand.
Kettering General Hospital’s Chief Operating Officer, Jo Fawcus, said: “This refurbishment was much needed and a necessity in order to ensure our patient care met social distancing standards during the pandemic.
“In the longer term we will replace this area within our planned Urgent Care Hub.
“The Urgent Care Hub has been allocated funding of £46m of Government funding and building this will enable us to have a new A&E department and a purpose built medical assessment facility to replace the current MAU.
“We hope to start work on the Urgent Care Hub at the end of next year. The Hub is also part of much larger plans to rebuild the hospital over the next 10 years.”
