Virtual opening for dedicated Orthopaedic centre at St Albans
Posted: 28 October 2020
The new Orthopaedic centre at St Albans City Hospital has been officially
opened in a virtual ceremony by MP for St Albans Daisy Cooper. Strict visiting
restrictions currently in place at all hospitals in West Herts meant that
Ms
Cooper’s opening speech was delivered via
video from her own back garden.
The opening of the dedicated centre will be welcome news for residents as it
will allow West Herts Hospitals NHS Trust to provide more treatments and
services within the department, improving patients’ experience and freeing up
capacity in other areas.
Basing all elective outpatient activity for the Trust’s team of 16 consultants
at a single hospital will lead to better multidisciplinary team working, and
will result in more efficient consultant-led clinics. The centre will cover all
orthopaedic subspecialties, such as lower limb, foot and ankle, spine, hand and
upper limb.
Access to a desktop x-ray machine means that some groups of patients will be
able to have their x-ray at the same time as their face to face appointment
freeing up over 14,000 referrals to the radiology department. This will create a
huge amount of capacity for the x-ray department, improving efficiency and
enhancing the patient experience.
Another new feature is the one-stop hand service which means that day case
procedures are performed in the centre’s multi treatment rooms freeing up the
hospital’s theatre complex for other operations. Shockwave treatment and
ultrasound-guided injections are further examples of new treatments that are now
available.
The centre also includes space for ‘schools’ or a large seminar room, to prepare
lower limb, spine and upper limb patients for hospital admission. External
reviewers have heaped praise on this initiative and the schools have received
fantastic feedback from patients.
Mr Simon West, divisional director for Surgery, Anaesthetics and Cancer at West
Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has been
at the forefront of activity for the past six months, however we have continued
to work hard to improve our non-COVID services during this time. The new
Orthopaedic centre has allowed access to our services to become as simple and
safe as possible for our patients. The improved facilities and increased
services now available within the new centre will improve our patients
experience and give other departments more capacity.”
Click here to watch the virtual
opening video.
Contact information
- For more information, please contact the communications team on: email: westherts.communications@nhs.net, For out of hours media enquiries please call the Watford General Hospital switchboard on 01923 244366 and ask for the on call communications manager.
- West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves people from across Hertfordshire, north London and further afield. It operates from three hospitals: Watford General, St Albans City and Hemel Hempstead. The trust sees around 600,000 patients a year and is one of the largest employers locally, with around 5,000 staff and volunteers.
- For more information about our hospitals, visit www.westhertshospitals.nhs.uk.. You can also join our followers on Twitter (twitter.com/westhertsNHS) and find us on Facebook (facebook.com/westhertsNHS).
