The new Urgent Treatment Centre at the Great Western Hospital site in Swindon has been named ‘Best Non-Residential New Build’ at the Swindon Building Control Awards.
The new, £15 million building provides a modern, fit-for-purpose facility that has doubled the urgent care department’s capacity, with more consultation rooms, separate waiting areas for adults and children and new plaster and ophthalmology rooms.
The Urgent Treatment Centre, which opened in July last year, marks the first phase of a wider project, known as the ‘Integrated Front Door’ programme, which seeks to expand the emergency department at the hospital and re-locate other ‘front door’ services to create an improved and better-connected urgent and emergency care department. The expansion will bring together a new, modern Emergency Department, a Same Day Emergency Care facility, and a new Children’s Emergency Unit; all of which will link directly with the new Urgent Treatment Centre, so that patients can move more easily between services.
The Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust recently had its business case for the new, expanded emergency department approved by the Department of Health and Social Care, which releases £26.3 million of Government funding and enables construction to get underway.
Robbie Kidd, Associate Director at McBains, commented: “The new facilities at Great Western Hospital will not only greatly improve the capacity of the urgent and emergency care department but will also deliver huge improvements to the patient experience and equip staff better to manage the ever-increasing demand on emergency services”.
McBains has been providing cost management services to Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust on the Integrated Front Door programme, which has also delivered a new energy centre to power and heat the new facilities using air source heat pumps.
