By Andrew Topping, Local Democracy Reporter
A £5.6m plan for a new operating theatre and two minor operation rooms at Newark Hospital could be up and running by April.
Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the site alongside King’s Mill and Mansfield Community Hospital, has secured the cash from NHS England.
The funding will be used to build an extra theatre to treat orthopaedic cases, including treatment for problems with bones, degenerative diseases and sports injuries.
It will also feature a recovery area and two minor operation suits and work is due to begin this year.
The trust expects more space to be created for outpatient treatment, allowing the hospital to perform about 2,634 extra procedures each year.
NHS leaders in the county say the cash will help to “expand” activity at the hospital through the creation of new facilities.
It comes after accident and emergency services were removed from the hospital in 2011, prompting local concern at the time.
Documents reveal orthopaedics – treatment of bones and joints – makes up about 41 per cent of patients waiting for an operation at Sherwood Forest Hospitals.
About 48 per cent of orthopaedic patients also wait more than 40 weeks for their procedure, the documents add.
The new capacity would allow for staff to operate an extra 10 hours of care per day, six days a week to clear waiting lists and backlogs.
And more staffing will be created, with the trust creating a recruitment plan to support current staffing vacancies and the extra staffing required through the new facilities.
Councillors discussed the facilities during Nottinghamshire County Council’s health scrutiny meeting on Tuesday (January 10).
In the meeting, Councillor Sue Saddington (Con), the committee’s chairman and divisional member for Farndon and Trent, described the plans as “vitally important”.
She added: “The very fact that this is bringing diagnostic treatments, scans and operations to Newark Hospital is very, very welcomed by the people locally.”
Cllr Debbie Darby (Ind), who represents Collingham, could not attend the meeting due to illness but a statement was read out on her behalf.
In the statement, she hoped the move was the “first step” towards a return to A&E facilities at Newark Hospital and welcomed the facilities.
In the statement, read out by Cllr Francis Purdue-Horan (Ind), she added: “I’m pleased that my pleas have been listened to.
“This news will be welcome in places like Newark, Collingham and Winthorpe and across the Collingham Division.”
The meeting heard from NHS representatives including Sherwood Forest Hospitals and the Nottinghamshire NHS Integrated Care Board (ICB).
Lucy Dadge, director of integration at the ICB, told councillors: “We see Newark as a fantastic site to provide protected capacity.
“We’re really confident that, to develop this particular service, we will be able to recruit and retain the appropriate additional staff.”
She added: “We want to make the public aware of this opportunity and recruit the staff, with the hope that all of the investment will be made and the new facilities will be ready, broadly speaking, from April.
“These are extra procedures, it isn’t people who might have been treated somewhere else coming to Newark – it’s additional capacity to do extra work.”
