Infection control boost as new Critical Care Department opens

The Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust’s new Critical Care Department opened on Tuesday, June 17, in the hospital’s £26million treatment centre.

The Garrett Anderson Centre is the biggest development on the hospital site for 30 years and will house emergency care, day surgery, elective care and critical care.

The department will boost the hospital’s infection control crackdown as it includes four isolation rooms where air pressure can be controlled to care for patients with or susceptible to infections. Each of the isolation rooms has an ante-chamber sterile area for gearing up, and enhanced ventilation. One has been designed for children and has space for a bed for their parent/carer.

The state-of-the-art new department includes a modern patient monitoring system. It has 22 beds and each is in its own room so it is more private for patients and relatives. The bed bays are also bigger than on the current unit, as well as lighter and brighter. The building has been built to provide services into the future so 15 beds will be used immediately and the others, including one isolation room, are ready for use when required. The visitor and staff facilities are also much improved.

Critical Care matron Mary Parfitt said: “Patients, visitors and staff alike will notice a huge difference and my team are very much looking forward to being able to improve the care we provide our patients.”

The centre also houses the hospital’s new Emergency Department, which moved in on June 3. It is more than twice the size of the old emergency unit and includes a children’s emergency area.

Later this month a day surgery suite with four theatres and an area dedicated for children, and a 40-bed ward for elective care with 20 single rooms, all en suite, will also open.

Mike Brookes, hospital Chairman, said: “The new four-storey centre gives the hospital more space and modern facilities to provide excellence in patient care and has been designed with patient privacy and dignity, and infection control in mind. It also offers hugely improved facilities for staff.”

The isolation rooms in the Critical Care unit are the latest in a series of anti-infection measures introduced as part of the hospital’s continuing commitment to infection prevention and control. Those already in place include reduced visiting times in a bid to stop the spread of infections, a new isolation ward, a 20-ward programme of deep cleaning and upgrading equipment and a major hand washing campaign.