£3.5m revamp for hospice

Compton Hospice will be given a £3.5 million makeover to transform care for patients and their families.

The investment will also reduce waiting times and allow more patients to be treated. The main feature of the plans will be the creation of 18 single, en-suite rooms for the treatment of inpatients at the site in Compton Road West, Wolverhampton.

It is hoped work could start by next month and it is expected to run until March next year. During that time inpatients will instead be cared for at the Nuffield Hospital in Tettenhall, which is half a mile away.

A £1million fundraising drive is set to be launched shortly to raise cash for the work, with the rest of the building costs being met from the charity's reserves which have been built up over the years for the redevelopment.

Bosses at the hospice are also hoping to secure a £600,000 Government grant for the work.

Under the plans the overall number of patient beds will be reduced by four but bosses say it will not lead to a reduction in care. Currently beds can be sometimes under-used as men and women patients cannot be mixed in the existing four-bed wards. Compton Hospice chief executive Ron Middleton said today: "The redevelopment with single en-suite rooms will enable us to provide a vastly enhanced standard of care for patients by bringing our facilities, that were built in 1982, into the 21st century.

"This is a very exciting development for Compton Hospice which will create a facility that will provide the highest quality of end-of-life care to people across the region for another generation."

Day care services, which are currently provided in one large day room, will be improved with the provision of a number of rooms for clinical and support services, in addition to a central group activity area.

The redevelopment will also enable therapy services to be properly integrated with inpatient and day care services, improving the overall service to patients.