The Royal Lancaster Infirmary is changing - new ward development
University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMBT) has announced that plans to change the Royal Lancaster Infirmary site to significantly improve the quality of the environment for acute medical patients, will start on 24 October.
At the beginning of November, a new temporary ward block will open as part of a larger re-organisation of wards in the Centenary Building to improve the environment for patients whilst in hospital.
The infomation on this page will also be supplied to the local media and adverts placed in local newspapers. Information leaflets for patients and visitors are available from this page.
The ground floor of the new unit will be known as the Acute Medical Unit. This unit will integrate the Medical Assessment Unit (MAU), a larger ambulatory care area and short stay beds for patients who require an admission of up to 72 hours. The unit will contain a mixture of examination and treatment rooms, assessment and short stay beds and a supervised lounge area for patients waiting for treatment. The assessment and short stay beds will be in single rooms or bays of three, four or five beds, all with en-suite facilities.
The first floor of the unit will house a general medical ward, known as ward 39. The ward will comprise of single rooms or bays of four or five beds and again, all will have en-suite facilities. Patients who require admissions of longer than 72 hours will be moved to this ward area or ward 37, which will change from a surgical ward to a medical ward at the beginning of November.
These moves are part of Awider improvement programme “Transforming Morecambe Bay” and will significantly improve the quality of the environment for patients.
It will offer a much better quality of accommodation, with more single rooms and en-suite facilities with walk in showers, enhancing privacy and helping to maintain a sense of personal dignity for patients. These will also improve the Trust's ability to control infections and offer greater flexibility around mixed sex accommodation.
The new building will be situated at the rear of the Education Centre and adjacent to the Centenary Building. It will be accessed through the Centenary Building.
The Trust is planning for all patients to have been moved by 1 November. All patients and their relatives and visitors will be informed of the actual moving date and where possible, the time, prior to any move taking place. The planned dates and associated moves are:
- On 24 October, all patients who are being cared for on ward 30, currently known as the MAU, and wards 5 and 6 in Medical Unit 1, will move into the new building.
- On 27 October, those patients who are acutely ill and may need surgery, or are recovering from surgery, will move into the new Acute Surgical Unit, currently the MAU and Clinical Decisions Unit in the Centenary Building.
- On 29 October, vascular and general surgery patients will move into the current Surgical Assessment Unit (SAU)
- From 30 October, day surgery patients will be seen in single sex wards with ward 5 as the female day surgery unit and ward 6 as the male day surgery unit.
- On 31 October, patients on wards 1, 2, 3 and 4 in Medical Unit 1 will move to ward 39 in the new unit and ward 37 in the Centenary Building. Surgical patients from ward 37 will move to ward 33 and patients on ward 33 will move to ward 30, which is on the ground floor of the centenary building.
- From 12 November, the Admissions Lounge will move to the current Clinical Decisions Unit and the Discharge Lounge will move to the Surgical Admissions Lounge.
With effect from Wednesday 24 October, visiting times in the new areas will be: 2pm to 4pm and 7pm to 8pm.
Whilst this process does involve a lot of moving patients, the Trust Board would like to reassure the public that it has planned this extensively so that the disruption to patients or their visitors is as minimal as it can be.
The Trust will continue to keep the public updated as things progress. If anyone would like further information, they can visit the Trust website at www.uhmb.nhs.uk and if they have any specific queries or questions, please email Interim2.info@mbht.nhs.uk.