Royal Berkshire Hospital opens doors to new £10 million elective orthopaedic unit
The Royal Berkshire Hospital has opened the doors of its new £10 million Redlands Elective Orthopaedic unit.
The unit, comprising four operating theatres, a six-bedded recovery ward and a 30-bed elective orthopaedic ward, is self-contained. Since patients will no longer need to be taken through other areas of the hospital between surgery and their recovery, the risk of infection will be dramatically reduced.
Royal Berkshire NHS Trust’s chief executive Jean O’Callaghan acknowledged that the unit comes with a high price tag for the cash-strapped hospital but said it is not an option to stop spending when it comes to improving facilities: “We can’t stop spending on making sure our facilities are safe and appropriate for patients,” she said. “If we had more money we would do even more.”
The state-of-the-art theatres have windows offering natural light, a feature rarely found in other theatres across the country. Tim Seymour, directorate manager of theatres, said: “Natural light as well as the artificial light is really, really unusual. Very few surgeries in the country have that. It makes such a big difference, especially if you do nine hours operating.”
Around 2800 operations and procedures a year will be carried out in the unit – mainly hip and knee replacements, hip arthroscopies, spinal surgery and shoulder surgery.
Source: www.getreading.co.uk
