We expand second front door for emergency care
Kettering General Hospital is expanding a major ‘front door’ emergency care service for patients who can be reviewed, treated and discharged on the same day.
Work has begun on a £300,000 plan to almost double the size of the hospital’s Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) service based next to the main A&E entrance.
Same Day Emergency Care is for patients with potentially serious conditions such as pneumonia, serious chest infections or pulmonary embolism (blockage of an artery).
These are conditions which, with rapid specialist intervention, can be stabilised and treated without the need for admission to a hospital bed.
The department’s footprint will expand from its pre-Covid configuration of two side rooms and a space for trolley beds to an area with eight treatment rooms, two clinic rooms and a socially distanced waiting area occupying most of the hospital’s former outpatient cubicles.
Kettering General Hospital’s Clinical Director for Urgent Care, Dr Adrian Ierina, said: “This is about creating a second front door for the hospital in addition to our A&E department.
“We have had a small SDEC for a number of years in our main ward block which was seeing 50-60 patients per day before the pandemic.* (see editor’s notes)
“It was in urgent need of expansion. Now we are carrying out that expansion – and right next to A&E – which means our main emergency care facilities will be based side-by-side.
“This will enable patients to see the right clinician, in the right place, as quickly as possible.”
Dr Ierina, who is also an A&E consultant, said: “This is very important right now as once again we are seeing a rise in emergency care patients attending hospital to almost pre-Covid levels.
“Since the beginning of August the A&E department we have seen an average of 228 patients per day – about the same as we were doing before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“That compares to attendance as-low-as 100 patients per day during the peak of Covid-19 in April and May.
“Of course our long term plan it to create a multi-million pound Urgent Care Hub on the hospital site and agreement for that has been reached (**see editor’s notes).
“However work will not start to build that until the end of 2021 so in the mean time we must look at how best to provide urgent and emergency care, especially considering the on-going threat from coronavirus.”