New £18 million York Hospital A&E set to open to the public

The new £18 million upgrade which opens to the public at 9am on Monday (July 10) was opened by senior sister Margaret Locker.

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Margaret has served for more than 52 years with the NHS, all of which have been with the York trust, having started her nursing career with in 1971. As part of her career, she treated the first patient in the current emergency department when it originally opened in 2003.

NHS Royalty, senior sister Margaret Locker, cutting the ribbon to officially open the department (Image: Haydn Lewis)

The opening marked the culmination of the trust's NHS75 birthday celebrations.

The new A&E department at York Hospital (Image: Haydn Lewis)

"This is the second revamp I've seen, and the new facilities are just amazing," said Margaret.

"It's so different to what we have had up to this point and the resuscitation suite is state of the art. It's a lovely environment for the staff to be in and for the patients, how could you not feel better walking into this?"

One of the new treatment bays in A& E at York Hospital (Image: Haydn Lewis)

The new space expands and reconfigures the emergency department’s urgent care facilities to increase capacity and improve patient care.

It sees a new eight bed resuscitation area along with improvements to both the waiting room and the consultation and treatment areas.

It also includes 12 new assessment and treatment cubicles where staff can meet patients when they arrive, and a dedicated safe room for mental health patients.

There is also a closed off suite to handle potential infectious diseases and on the second floor, a 15 seater frailty assessment unit.

The new frailty assessment unit above the A&E at York Hospital (Image: Haydn Lewis)

Dr Steve Crane, consultant in emergency medicine at York Hospital, said: "These are fantastic facilities, we have been involved in the design work from the start and we want to see people more quickly so they are not having to wait when they come in and senior staff will be on hand.

"We hope we can get essential assessment undertaken and streaming will happen much more quickly.

"It's not a panacea for a lack of primary care or a lack of social care, but we don't have any corridors, we didn't design anywhere for ambulances to queue, because we aim to turn things around quickly and get those ambulances back on the road where they should be.

"The aims here are absolutely clear - we want to speed up the clinical assessment process and make sure patients get early and professional treatment."

Dr Steve Crane (Image: Haydn Lewis)

Simon Morritt, trust chief executive, said: "It's been a hell of a few years in the emergency department, it's been really difficult.

"I have never experienced anything like it in my 34 years in the NHS, so when we did get the opportunity to access capital ro develop our emergency department there were some fraught conversations as to whether we should do it. It meant we would be constructing a new unit on the footprint of the existing one and we'd still have to function.

"I want to say a huge huge huge thank you to our staff who will now be moving from a cramped environment to a new department."

Simon Morritt (Image: Haydn Lewis)

He said the plan is to convert the existing A&E into a large area to provide more emergency care and prevent patients having to go to different parts of the hospital. This work should be complete by September.