There is lots happening behind the hoardings on our new maternity floor, catheter labs and cardiology department, and plant room at CRH.

The enabling work on the maternity floor is moving at pace. Last week, the maternity teams pulled together to switch medical gases over to temporary supplies whilst our contractors, Piggott & Whitfield completed essential work. It happened over two consecutive nights and involved coordinating maternity, theatres and NICU. And thanks to their teamwork, it all completed successfully.  

Gautam Chakrabarty (Chak) is one of our Clinical Leads in the reconfiguration work, and was a keep part of coordinating this work. Clinical Nurse Manager on NICU, Jo-Ann Cornelly, had this praise for Chak: "Thank you for all the help and support you provided to the NICU team. The support, communication and coordination throughout the operation were exceptional. The feedback regarding the involvement of the Site Matron, Project Manager, and everyone involved has been overwhelmingly positive.

"Your leadership, responsiveness and collaborative approach made what could have been a challenging situation feel seamless and well managed. The team greatly appreciated the support received throughout.

"Thank you to everyone involved. It was very much noticed and valued by the NICU team."

The new maternity floor is being created where the Old Physiotherapy Department was located. Behind the hoarding, our contractors have now removed most of the internal rooms, in preparation for building to start.

On our plant room scheme, keen eyes may have spotted that a rather large crane has now arrived on the CRH site (pictured). The crane is lifting steel over and above the CRH building to build the new plant room.

Hoarding will also soon be up outside near the Ingleton Falls restaurant at CRH to prepare for more extensive work to begin on our Cardiology Department. This week the Cardiology team, contractors and Outpatient Department have worked together to have power off overnight for essential work to take place.

Thank you to teams and neighbouring departments for their understanding and support throughout this work. 

About the new maternity floor

Our maternity services will be on one dedicated floor, leading to improved safety and quality for women and families. The work includes building an additional dedicated maternity theatre and relocating the Birth Centre onto the first floor. 

About the twin Catheter Lab and Cardiology Day Case unit

We are building a new purpose-built Cardiology Day Case Unit and two new Catheter Labs in the existing Cardiology Department and adjacent clinical space on the ground floor at CRH. This work will bring our Catheter Labs, Day Case Unit and Cardiology Department into the same area on the ground floor, providing a more efficient and future-proof service, and give our patients a better experience.

Patients will be able to recover post procedure from the Catheter Lab until discharge, for planned treatment and/or investigations, which means they may not need an inpatient admission.

About the plant room

We are also undertaking work in our plant room to make sure we have the technical infrastructure in place to support the new Catheter Labs and Maternity Floor.