Good Hope increases capacity with 48 beds

Pressure on Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield caused by the pandemic has been eased with the opening of two new wards. Both opened within days of each other at the Rectory road site and will accommodate 48 patients, helping the NHS get back on track, following the impact of COVID-19.

The new wards will allow the extra bed capacity to be realised within the existing hospital estate, with wards 14 and 17 moving to occupy the newly- built ward spaces.

Ward 14 (Stroke) has moved into the new ground floor ward (Ward 28), with surgery moving into the new first floor ward, now Ward 29 on Friday 26 August.

The space Ward 14 and 17 vacate will then be reorganised and optimised for its new uses, providing the much-needed boost to the number of beds available to treat patients.

Construction of the new wards began in March 2022 and took just under six months to complete, with more than 70 lorries delivering the bulk of the ward in modules, during a single impressive bank holiday weekend in May.

Waiting lists across the NHS have grown to the highest levels ever seen owing to the pandemic, and this was particularly serious in Birmingham, with hospitals seeing the highest number of inpatients with COVID-19 anywhere in the country.

This led to more than 17,000 people waiting two years or more for a procedure at University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) in the autumn of 2021.

But by July this year, the Trust had brought that number down to fewer than 100, with the remainder waiting for reasons of patient choice or complexity of treatment.

The Trust is now focused on bringing down the number of patients waiting more than 78 weeks for a procedure; while also working to improve other measures, such as a reduction in ambulance handover delays, and improvements to its cancer performance measures.

New wards have already opened elsewhere in the Trust, with two wards having opened at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) in February.

A further ward will open at QEHB in September, and two new wards will open this winter at Heartlands Hospital.