Surgeons welcome £1.8m day unit plan

Work on the new unit at Doncaster’s Royal Infirmary is expected to begin in the next four weeks after the board of Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospital NHS Foundation Trust signed the contracts.

Jay Dugar, a consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon and clinical director at the trust, said: “This is fantastic news and will significantly improve day surgery facilities at the hospital.

“Surgical advances, including keyhole techniques, mean patients recover more quickly and procedures that once required them to stay in hospital can now be done on a day-case basis.

“Our existing day surgery unit is now at full capacity with cramped facilities and the volume of day-case patients is only going to increase so we really do need to expand and upgrade it.

“We are also establishing a dedicated day-case and short-stay surgical ward as part of these plans so that patients don’t need to be admitted to inpatient beds while recovering from their operation.”

Plans for the unit include single-sex day wards where patients can recover until they are well enough to go home and a separate area for children.

Under current plans, the new unit will also have longer opening hours than the existing unit, a move which hospital bosses said would enable surgeons to perform more complex operations on a day-case basis.

Recently the trust also unveiled plans to convert the Montagu Hospital in Mexborough into a rehabilitation unit, with all serious “blue light” incidents being dealt with in Doncaster.

The contract for building the day surgery unit has been awarded to Doncaster-based Pacy and Wheatley Construction after a competitive tendering process and the new unit is expected to be open next summer.