Work starts on new £2.6m centre at Russells Hall Hospital
Work has started on a new £2.6 million Emergency Treatment Centre at a Black Country hospital.
The new centre at Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley is due to open in November.
The purpose-built centre, developed in partnership with Dudley CCG, will house urgent care services.
It will be right next to the hospital's existing emergency department, with bosses saying it will give patients 'an improved single point of access and one stop shop for urgent and emergency treatment'.
Having the two services side-by-side means patients won’t have as far to go for non-emergency care and staff will be able to work closer together, chiefs added.
The new building will house the new urgent care waiting area, eight urgent treatment rooms, as well as a new emergency department waiting area.
Paul Bytheway, chief operating officer at The Dudley Group, said: "While the building work is underway, there will be some temporary changes to the way patients access the emergency department.
"Patients will still receive the same high quality service, but will come via a temporary waiting area to the right hand side of our existing emergency entrance.
From August 8, patients will have to access A&E and the urgent care centre from a temporary entrance.
A new drop off zone will be created outside the temporary building and visitors will then park in the main visitor car park which has been adapted with a new pedestrian walkway to allow better access.
Diane Wake, chief executive, said: “This £2.6m investment really is money well spent to improve urgent and emergency care for Dudley patients ahead of winter and is just one of a number of major projects to improve healthcare for our patients”
“We’re also investing £3.5m in our state-of-the-art imaging suite at Guest Outpatient Centre and our electronic patient record 'digital trust' project will see £32m invested over the next 10 years.”
