Plans have been lodged to extend the accident and emergency (A&E) department at Aintree University Hospital.
A proposal has been put to Liverpool Council’s planning committee by Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to add a three storey extension to the existing A&E and theatre departments.
It is said that the extension would be “critical to the delivery of the hospital’s services” including the provision of specialist emergency stroke care alongside the existing A&E department on the ground floor, with the benefits of adjacencies to the existing radiology and A&E facilities.
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The site is positioned within the south part of the hospital estate, comprising the newer additions to the hospital including the Elective Care Centre, Clatterbridge Centre, and the urgent care and trauma centre extension to the front of the hospital.
The application adds that the development would provide a “reconfigured and expanded” theatre department, with two new ‘hybrid’ theatres which comprise of real time diagnostic imaging during the operational procedure.
This would help “improve patient outcomes, speed recovery time and reduce the period of treatment time for the patient,” according to the plans, which will go before Liverpool Council’s planning committee on Tuesday March 1.
A trio of new ambulance bays would also be created as part of the new layout, extending the current provision located to the front of the A&E Department off the hospital’s internal circulatory road.
The hospital’s ‘Nurses in Motion’ statue and time capsule would be relocated to the north of the proposed new layout.
The application represents the first phase of a new multi-phased Emergency Department and Theatre expansion and re-modelling exercise in order to meet the growing needs of the Trust.
Future phases include remodelling of the existing ground floor maternity block for Stroke Ward services, for overnight stays of a maximum of three days, and re-modelling of the frailty assessment currently utilised as an Acute Medical Unit during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Council officers have recommended committee members approve the proposal, subject to the NHS Trust entering into a Section 106 agreement to cover costs, in lieu of the provision of street trees and in lieu of funding the council’s public art strategy.
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