New Yorkshire hospitals ready to become fully operational

Years of planning for the facilities in Wakefield and Pontefract will come to fruition with their opening on March 8.

Health chiefs say the new hospitals, built in a £300m private finance initiative deal, will save lives, reduce disability and improve patient outcomes.

The most seriously-ill patients will be treated at Pinderfields in Wakefield while Pontefract will deal with local people with lesser problems, although nine out of 10 patients are expected to continue to be treated there.

The chief executive of the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Julia Squire, said: “Patients are benefiting from new and improved facilities to offer the best possible care in the best possible environment.

“They are not only benefiting from state-of-the-art modern facilities but have faster access to their care and treatment because the new building has been designed to accommodate the latest technology and innovations in healthcare.”

Phased opening of a number of departments over coming days will see the first baby born in the new maternity unit at Pinderfields tomorrow alongside a new neonatal unit serving Wakefield, Pontefract and Dewsbury with 20 cots, up from 14 currently. A midwife-led maternity unit will open in Pontefract.

A 48-bed children’s ward at Pinderfields will open on Saturday, with a new emergency department at Pontefract, which is expected to see 150 patients a day.

The new accident and emergency at Pinderfields, which has a dedicated children’s area, opens on Sunday and will treat 250 people a day.

The head of clinical service in emergency and acute medicine, Matt Shepherd, said yesterday: “Our bigger, brighter emergency departments are housed with new state-of-the-art equipment and are purposefully located next to other key facilities such as our CT scanner.

“This allows rapid access to important diagnostic services which is essential in saving lives in critical cases.”