By Anna Whittaker, Local Democracy Reporter
The details of a major project to upgrade Nottingham’s hospital buildings and relocate services have been revealed.
Funding will be used to ensure “old and tired” hospital buildings are transformed at Nottingham University Hospitals through the ‘Tomorrow’s NUH’ programme.
The trust, made up of Queen’s Medical Centre and City Hospital, was chosen as one of 40 major hospitals to be funded by the Government to make the changes.
As part of the proposals, all “family care” services including maternity would be based at Queen’s Medical Centre in a brand new Women’s and Children’s hospital.
The trust says this “would help us to improve the quality of care and safety for women, babies, children, and their families”.
Maternity services are currently marked as ‘inadequate’ by inspectors, but the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said it believes the proposed move to QMC would “help support” improvements.
The CCG is currently carrying out its own review into maternity services at the trust which it is expected to complete in November 2022.
The ‘Tomorrow’s NUH’ programme is expected to begin implementing changes from summer 2023 and completion is expected by the end of the decade.
There are also proposals for all emergency care to be delivered at Queen’s Medical Centre which the CCG say will “reduce transfers of acutely unwell patients from city to QMC”.
QMC would also become the “primary base” for inpatient cancer care, while patients would go to City Hospital for diagnosis, surgery and outpatient treatment.
Despite the significant changes planned for QMC, there are also “major ambitions” for City Hospital to “transform this site into a centre for excellence for elective or planned care”.
Lucy Dadge, chief commissioning officer for NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire CCG, said: “We believe that programmes like the NUH programme offer a once in a generation approach to secure significant investment.
“We do feel really strongly that delivering on this isn’t just about a large construction project, we believe it will be a trend for local, social and economic regeneration, creating new jobs and stimulating ground-breaking medical research.”
Speaking of the maternity plans, Ms Dadge added: “The drivers behind this proposal are clear, we want to be able to recruit and retain specialist healthcare professionals providing the highest quality care to all parents and families.
“Our evidence tells us this is the best way to do it.
“We believe improvement to maternity care services, including the establishment of the independent thematic review at NUH, will continue to be a priority separate to the proposed changes here.
“However we do believe that these changes will help to support that journey to improving safety.”
The latest ‘listening exercise’ on the plans is open until April 1 for residents to give feedback.
Three large public meetings will then take place as well as community groups meetings to gather thoughts on the proposals.
