QEQM Hospital’s new Emergency Department has been unveiled this week.
The first phase of a multi-million-pound expansion of the department features a new children’s emergency department, large new treatment areas for adults, dedicated areas for patients with mental health needs, a new entrance for patients and waiting area.
It also includes much-needed staff facilities, including dedicated spaces for clinical teaching, staff rest areas and work spaces.
Jo Williams, head of nursing for urgent and emergency care at QEQM, said: “We have worked really closely with the architects and construction partners to create fantastic new treatment areas for our patients and a dedicated area to support staff wellbeing.
“We’re really proud of the new department and it has been fantastic to welcome patients this week. Huge thanks to everyone involved in the extraordinary effort to open the first phase.”
The second phase of the department’s transformation starts later this month, when extensive renovations within the existing department get underway to create a new rapid assessment area and more areas for patients with mental health needs.
The third phase, due to start next year, will expand and renovate the resuscitation area, where some of the sickest patients are treated.
New artwork featuring stunning scenes of Thanet coastline take pride of place throughout the new unit, part-funded by East Kent Hospitals Charity.
The £7million, three-year project for the departments at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford and the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate has been made possible by capital funding from NHS England.
it will still be a drop in centre – because its impossible to get a doctors appointment !
It was well overdue, it wasn’t long ago, there were talks about closing A&E at the QEQM and moving it all to Ashford, glad the NHS didn’t, Thanet needs this department and the hospital.
What no more queuing outside in the cold and rain for the A&E department. ? This will please the many who give up and go to the minor injuries units in Herne Bay. However, will there still be a transfer of patients from Thanet to Ashford or Ashford to Thanet my guess is yes. The real answer to the problem is to reopen the A&E at Canterbury. With the expansion of houses in Thanet, Canterbury and Herne Bay area’s it is inevitable that the SE NHS service will have to rethink their plans yet again.
With the population of thanet increasing every month ,QEQM should have all services increased ,and no movement of anything to Canterbury/Ashford,but knowing the way people ,here ,always vote tory ,and then moan about cuts to services ,got a fight on to keep them
Yes indeed, the local community is ever increasing some transient some permanent.
https://stevelawsreport.co.uk/ngos-hand-out-leaflets-telling-illegals-how-to-cross-the-channel/
I was there on Monday because there were no GP appointments available for urgent paediatric attention. It’s like a field hospital in A&E, the staff do their best, but it’s a disgrace. This is just the beginning of the end of decent health care in Thanet. The trust has diverted many clinics and of course the stroke unit to the William Harvey hospital in Ashford. It is a costly nightmare to get there and back from Thanet and basically excludes access to patients and their families who don’t have the means to get there. With the ever increasing population in Thanet we need more focus on the Qeqm rather than less. A&E will still be populated by people who are unable to get beds because the care system is broken for those who are able to be sent home to convaless. The extension, whilst helpful, is mere sticking plaster on the chronic deterioration of our health service which is being monetised for profiteers ie. privatisation. We are heading fast to the inequitous US system which is massively overpriced and excludes or is detrimental to the poor and chronically seriously ill. The Tories have used the NHS as a political football, remember them lying about it to encourage people to vote for Brexit? As for the Labour Party, the Tory lights, notably the MP made of margarine, Wes Streeting is pro privatisation. If you want decent health care in this part of Kent you have to fight politicians and Trusts every inch of the way. It’s appalling that the NHS has been damaged so badly by right-wing ideology.
Were so let down here in thanet, Why ?
Your so right Clare! The two chocolate tea pots for North & South Thanet, have done nothing about the failure of the NHS in Thanet, which is the one truly essential thing they should be doing! Mackinlay is a traitor, trying to win votes by saying he will start a petition to reopen Manston that will devastate Ramsgate, and much of Thanet so why wasn’t he trying to get us extra GP’s instead to make himself useful?
Rather like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Now that the Covid hub in Westwood Cross is closing, will the staff get back to work in hospitals and GP surgeries?
Well the staff in the hospitals have carried on, the problem is they have been swamped more than ever because of the GP’s not seeing people & so A&E gets used as a replacement surgery, as there are no walk in centres.
I don’t foresee GP’s going back to how it was-there were big problems long before Covid & for so long making 15-30 quid per jab, working from home/sitting in their office doing Skype consultations & not having to see patients while on full pay is the way they want to keep it.
And time critical stroke patients being sent to Ashford. I give up.
I was up there last week A&E was packed. It’s been made worse by no major A&E in Canterbury so people from Deal and HerneBay are coming to Margate- so that’s increased the catchment area by 60k or so. Absolutely ridiculous
This emergency department saved my mum’s life. Are they hugely overstretched, yes they are. Are they massively underfunded, yes they are. However the doctors and nurses are some of the most skilled and dedicated in the world. The problem lies with the government and not with the hospitals themselves. 3000 houses in an area already overpopulated but no more healthcare, schools or community facilities and that is phase one. Same story up and down the country. Thank god for the nhs and it’s staff, you are are credit to this country.