19 January 2023
Frimley Health’s new centre of excellence for non-emergency care, Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot, has been declared officially open by HRH The Countess of Wessex GCVO.
The Countess visited Heatherwood this morning, meeting staff and patients during a special tour of the hospital before unveiling the plaque at an official opening event. The tour included visiting the the hospital’s state of the art theatre area, the day case ‘pods’, the ophthalmology department and an inpatient ward.
The dedicated planned care hospital, which opened its doors to patients in March last year, has already had a significant impact on waiting times for local communities.
In just ten months, more than a 1000 hip and knee replacements have been performed, up 20% on the number of procedures carried out pre-Covid, more than 2000 cataracts operations completed, and thousands of patients have been diagnosed, treated and discharged by specialists at the hospital.
As a specialist planned care facility, Heatherwood has been able to perform surgery six days a week - with four out of its six state of the art theatres dedicated to orthopaedic procedures. The hospital has also successfully reduced the length of time patients stay in hospital, with 40% of patients safely discharged within 24 hours.
The hospital has introduced several innovative ways of working in order to increase the number of operations it performs such as trialling orthopaedic ‘super weeks’ where surgeons managed to double the number of weekly joint replacement procedures from 40 to 80 and outpatients’ ‘mega clinic’ – where patients who had waited the longest were invited in to see a team of consultants for a same day diagnosis and treatment plan.
The 11,500 square metre £100m building has been designed to provide easy and efficient care for patients. By using a combination of the latest digital technology and flexible outpatient spaces, and coordinating appointments for consultations, diagnostics and surgical procedures, Heatherwood reduces the number of visits patients need to make to the hospital
Neil Dardis, chief executive, Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are delighted to welcome The Countess of Wessex to officially open the hospital. It’s a very proud day for our staff and for the local communities, marking the treasured 100-year legacy of the old Heatherwood and celebrating this fantastic new hospital – one of the best planned care facilities in the NHS.
“This a momentous day and it’s a privilege to showcase the achievements we’ve had in the last 10 months to improve planned care for our local communities. Tackling the waiting lists for our patients is more important than ever, we’ve built a strong platform to build on since we opened in March with all our staff working extremely hard to reduce waiting times and get patients the right treatment they need at the right time.”
Key features of the hospital include:
- Six state of the art laminar flow operating theatres. Optimised for orthopaedic procedures with one dedicated to ophthalmology. Operations will take place six days a week.
- 48 in-patient beds including 20 individual ensuite side rooms all making the most of the woodland views
- 22 day case pods. Specially designed day care procedure rooms allow more patients to be treated for ‘minor’ procedures
- 26 outpatient procedure and treatment rooms. Freeing up time in the main operating theatres.
- Six dedicated ‘eye rooms’ – Patients will be treated more quickly for eye procedures such as cataracts
- Two endoscopy suites – Double the number of endoscopy appointments will be available
- Radiology services – CT, mammography, MRI, ultrasound and x-ray