Solihull Hospital to become coronavirus-free facility

Speaking at a briefing on Friday, University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust’s chief operating officer, Jonathan Brotherton, confirmed the plans – with only elective surgeries set to take place there.

Those seeking treatment for coronavirus will be asked to instead visit either the Queen Elizabeth or Heartlands hospitals, with phase two set to begin from June 1.

The initial focus will be on providing time-critical surgeries such as vital cancer operations, with the trust ‘particularly focussed on undertaking procedures in which a delay has a significant impact on outcome.’

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Mr Brotherton said: “The focus will be to expand our provision of routine surgery, so we have prioritised time-critical cancer operations, for example for the private sector, and extending that out into a broader range of surgical interventions, particularly around general surgery.

“If operations are primarily around improvements in quality of life then clearly they are also important, but they are often less time-critical. Pre-Covid, it was largely orthopedics that were undertaken at the hospital.

"We want to increase the range of specialties to include things like colorectal, urology, ear nose and throat, maxillofacial and some other surgical specialties as well.

“And those would be significant surgical procedures, they wouldn’t be particularly the kind of procedures that would normally be done as a day case. Although we will still do day cases, because a lot of complex work is undertaken as a day case.

“But actually Solihull will be providing a far higher level of elective surgical work, activity, for patients, for the whole of Birmingham and Solihull, over this coming period.

"And that’s a real fundamental part of us addressing the other phase two part of the plan, for Covid, is to open up access for the urgent elective services that the patients need.”

Under the new plans, patients going for elective surgeries at Solihull hospital would be screened beforehand for Covid-19, and may even have to self-isolate from their own family members prior to their procedure to ‘as much as humanly possible reduce the risk that anyone with Covid-19 will come into one of our sites.’

The trust announced that they are able to move on to phase two of their approach due to the falling number of cases in the region, which peaked on April 11, 12 and 13 – with 163 patients in intensive care.

Suspected Covid-19 cases will continue to be treated at other hospitals in the region during phase two, the trust added.