The first cohort of patients have been welcomed at Wrightington Hospitals’ brand-new Elective Ambulatory Unit (EAU). The EAU is a new planned service, which offers same day care to patients at the hospital. This means that patients are assessed, diagnosed, treated and are able to go home the same day, without being admitted into hospital overnight.
As part of the funding received to set up surgical hubs across the UK, Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s (WWL) Wrightington site has been operating as an orthopaedic surgical hub for Greater Manchester.
Some of the capital investment received for this, has allowed the Trust to transform a previously unutilised theatre into a state-of-the-art EAU.
Hazel Hendriksen, Divisional Director for Specialist Services at WWL, said: “I am so proud of the staff and the outstanding care that they are providing. The new unit will allow us to treat more patients who have non-complex upper limb surgeries and enable us to reduce the waiting list for surgery as quickly as possible.”
Now able to support communities across Greater Manchester and partners within the Wigan Borough health and care system, the new ambulatory unit began receiving patients on Monday 5th September.
One of the first patients to receive walk in, walk out care on the unit was Pauline Farrell, from Worsley Hall, Wigan.
Pauline, who gave a handcrafted card to say, ‘thank you’ to staff taking care of her, before she was presented with a bouquet of flowers from those working on the unit to mark the occasion, said: “It’s been absolutely brilliant, the unit is lovely and I’ve felt like a VIP the whole time I was here.
“I came in this morning, had my surgery and now I’m off home, I haven’t been here long at all. Everyone has been wonderful.”
Mr Sumedh Talwalker, Divisional Medical Director and Orthopaedic Consultant at Wrightington, said: “It is a pleasure to provide this care to patients and we are always striving to be at the forefront of innovation at Wrightington Hospital.”
The Department of Health and Social Care announced at the start of September that more than 50 surgical hubs were being set up around the country to deal with the backlog of patients waiting for care caused by the coronavirus pandemic.