New Bromsgrove minor injury unit will aim to 'improve patient experience'
The new facility opened its doors to patients on Monday (6 October) at the Princess of Wales Community Hospital
The opening of a new minor injury unit (MIU) in Bromsgrove will be a benefit to both staff and patients says its team lead.
Patients were able to access the purpose-built facility for the first time on Monday (6 October) at the Princess of Wales Community Hospital.
Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, who run the service, has invested £1.6 million into the development of it, aimed at improving patient experience and streamlining care delivery.
Alongside five new treatment rooms, the new unit has a dedicated resus bay, specialist facilities for the treatment of eye injuries and a plaster room, while also being based next to the existing X-ray department.
Team lead Dawn Shaw says the move to take up the space where the former breast screening unit was much needed.
"The move to the new unit has been quite a long time coming, we were operating from three rooms and the demand on the service sort of outgrew that unit quite a while ago," she said.
"So the areas were small, it was quite difficult to get wheelchairs in along with a relative, it was just a confined working space and it also did delay patient flow because often you were waiting for a room to become available.
"We had no area for new staff to work, so shortly we'll be looking at staffing because the new unit would enable more staff to work in there, it's just a fantastic environment now for staff to work in and also for patients."
Over the weekend the town's former place was closed to allow teams to relocate equipment and prepare the new space ahead of Monday's opening, with patients asked to contact Worcestershire’s alternative minor injury units.
The unit is said to see an average of 320 patients a week across 7 days, with Shaw saying they've been busy since building work started in January getting things prepared.
"It's got everything that we wanted in it," she said.
"So we visited other units and looked at what they got and took the ideas from there and added extras on of brilliant things that we've got.
"We've got a dedicated triage room, a dedicated resource room, a plaster room, an eye room and five treatment rooms, so all in all it's just fantastic."