Bid for temporary operating theatres (From The Argus)

Bid for temporary operating theatres

10:40am Wednesday 2nd January 2013 in News By Neil Vowles

A hospital plans to open temporary operating theatres to carry out up to 20 operations a day to cope with an expected increase in patients.

Bosses at the Princess Royal Hospital want to build a theatre building on the hospital site in Haywards Heath for the next five years.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust says that the move is necessary now that the trust has achieved major trauma status.

A planning application submitted to Mid Sussex District Council states that the proposed unit will have up to 20 patients per day with around half expected to be from increased patient numbers linked to the trust’s new trauma status.

The new theatres are designed to only hold patients for a short time for surgery and recovery with patients expected to spend between two and four hours in the temporary building.

The proposal is to develop the new theatre accommodation in two phases.

The new buildings will include stage two recovery wards each containing four beds, with a separate single room and a three bed stage one recovery ward.

Facilities will also include staff changing rooms, patient and visitor toilets, administration offices as well as storage space for linen, medical equipment, cleaners, dirty utility and clean utility rooms.

The theatres will be built between the existing 1980s traditional-brick hospital buildings and a new treatment centre and will take the place of approximately 65 car parking spaces from the hospital’s car park with ten spaces reinstated once building work has been completed.

Trust bosses say that the proposed work is linked to another proposal to demolish the Beechmont Building to create an additional 60 car parking spaces.

Fifty-five spaces will be temporarily unavailable while these works are carried out.

The trust won trauma status in April this year, one of five dedicated centres in the South East specialised in dealing with patients with complex or multiple injuries.

Under the status, consultants are available at the hospital 24 hours a day, seven days a week 

The application’s planning statement reads: “The proposed temporary theatre building will be on site for an anticipated period of five years and will meet the full requirements for the delivery of 21st century healthcare.”