After a £5.5m refurbishment and a "significant upgrade", top-of-the-range new operating theatres have opened at Wansbeck General Hospital.
The latest work - the second phase of a major revamp of facilities at the Ashington hospital - was completed at the end of May. The idea is that the remodelled theatres will help surgeons increase efficiency and help deal with the backlog of people waiting for elective treatment.
The theatres themselves have been improved to boost flexibility - and hospital bosses said this would improve the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust's capacity for complex procedures including spinal and orthopaedic surgery. Theatres 1 to 4 at the hospital have now been remodelled - adding to work completed on numbers 5 and 6 this time last year.
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Scott Muller, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and project lead, said he was proud to be part of the surgical team at the trust and added: "Our people are the ones responsible for delivering the high-quality care that people expect from Northumbria, but their jobs are made much easier by ensuring they can work in top-of-the-range facilities with a wide range of benefits for patients and staff."
He also thanked the lead contractor Medical Air Technology for being "considerate and conscientious". Marion Dickson, the NHS trust's executive with responsibility for surgery, said: "I’m delighted that this important project has been completed successfully and that we now have six new state-of-the-art theatres available for our patients.
“We are working incredibly hard to ensure waiting times for patients remain as short as possible and while we are not where we want to be, our performance on a national level continues to be very strong. This is because of the fantastic efforts of staff, our model of care and a continuing focus on innovation and investment, like this renovation."
Wansbeck Hospital - like Hexham and North Tyneside general hospitals, which are also part of Northumbria Healthcare - is a centre of surgical excellence and this allows much of the trust's elective care to be carried out away from the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital.
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