Shake-up on hospital beds after ward opens

Mark Branagan

A MAJOR shake-up of the beds at a seaside town hospital is under way after the opening of a new surgical ward cleared the way for other changes to improve healthcare.

Scarborough Hospital’s Maple Ward, which has 28 beds, opened its doors to patients on Sunday, allowing NHS trust chiefs to look at the bigger picture of how other beds are allocated across the site.

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An assessment of what types of beds are needed at the hospital to meet current and future demands has led to a number of ward changes, with more to come, trust bosses say.

These include Beech Ward relocating to Maple Ward to enable Beech to close for a minor programme of refurbishment. When it reopens on October 25, 15 patients from Chestnut and 19 patients from Graham Ward will move to Beech Ward to enable Graham Ward to close for maintenance work until December 13.

The Acute Assessment Unit will move to Cherry/Chestnut Ward which will also house short-stay medical beds and a 12-bedded Surgical Admissions Unit.

Holly Ward has now become a surgical/orthopaedic ward and the Private Patient Unit has opened as an isolation ward to treat patients with infectious diseases such as C Difficile.

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Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Healthcare NHS Trust’s interim director of operations, Peter Kennedy, said: “We are delighted Maple Ward is open. This really is a fantastic facility which will offer surgical patients a state-of-the-art environment.

“The addition of this new ward has enabled us to look at what type of wards and beds are needed at the hospital and to make changes to accommodate current and future demand.”

Mr Kennedy said the benefits would far outweigh any short-term disruption as the new system settled into the groove.

“We will endeavour to keep disruption to a minimum. We would ask patients and staff to bear with us whilst these ward moves take place. These changes will enable us to provide our patients with a better environment and patient experience.”