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00:30Hi, I'm Kate Hardy, I'm one of the Clinical Directors for the New Emergency Department
00:39and we call that programme the Building Better Emergency Care Programme.
00:43How long has this process been taken? It's been quite a few years.
00:47Quite a few years, so I've been working on it for about five years.
00:51We had the offer of the money and the agreement to build this over six years ago,
00:56so this has been a long-term piece of work that we've been working on together for that time.
01:01What's it been like to see it all come together and to get to this stage now where you're close to opening?
01:06It is phenomenal to see and I think it's really amazing because we've had some patients coming in
01:13and they've seen the difference and they're really impressed
01:17and I think that's going to be the major thing for our staff is to see how amazing this facility is for our community.
01:24Just to see the staff, because I'm not actually an Emergency Department doctor, I work for Older Persons Medicine,
01:30so for me I've been supporting the teams coming together,
01:34but just to see how the Emergency Department team have worked really hard,
01:39continually working really hard to get us to opening day, it's going to be fantastic for them and our patients.
01:46If we go on to the next thing, what's the impact on your patients?
01:49What's going to be the big difference or the lessons learned from the existing Emergency Department to what it is now?
01:56I think we always recognise that this building is fantastic, but it's not just about the building,
02:01because we know that it's the flow of patients and the way that we provide our care for patients that's important,
02:07so we've done a load of work continuing to do so on how we bring teams together to really understand the best route,
02:13the best ways of managing our patients, but also using this as a system opportunity for us all to come together and work more collectively.
02:20I think that's, again, what I'm really proud of is just seeing the teams that are now talking together, working together much better,
02:27because this has been that kind of opportunity to bring them together and have those conversations,
02:32so it's a really good building block as well as all the work we've done for the future of maintaining progress.
02:39Obviously we're sitting here in the children's department, so that's a new feature of ours in terms of obviously we have one level separate,
02:48so what's going to look different on that?
02:50Yes, so very historically, when we used to have the old St Mary's site open, we had a children's department down there,
02:58and we've maintained those historical ways of managing children,
03:02and this again has been the kind of impetus for us to look at that,
03:08and actually nationally the best practice is to have a single front door for ambulances and completely separate for children,
03:15so from now on that's how we will be managing them,
03:18so children have their own drop-off point and their own ambulance entrance and will be managed in their own area,
03:23completely separated from the adult side.
03:32My name's Peter Russell, I'm the Clinical Director of the Emergency Department here at QAH,
03:37and alongside Kate Hardy I am the Clinical Director of the BBEC project.
03:43How's it gone? Has it been a smooth process?
03:46I'd like to say it's been smooth all the way, but it really hasn't.
03:50It's a tricky thing, I probably am the only person in the hospital who's ever had an emergency,
03:57I'd like to say it's been smooth all the way, but it really hasn't.
04:00It's a tricky thing, I probably entered into it with my eyes not fully open about what was required,
04:06but from a blank piece of paper we're now standing in a fantastic new emergency department
04:12with lots of huge benefits for our patients and staff, so I'm really pleased.
04:16How excited are you to open those doors?
04:18There's definitely nerves, but absolutely I think really excited,
04:23I think the benefits of the building and all the work that's happening in parallel to the building
04:28to improve patient journey and patient flow as well as staff experience is going to make a real difference.
04:34What do you think the biggest difference is going to be for patients?
04:38One of the advantages that we've talked about this morning is all of these cubicles behind me
04:43are now proper cubicles rather than curtain bays that we're using at the moment,
04:48so the infection control improvements will be vast.
04:52Patient dignity and the ability to have a private conversation with your patients is much, much improved.
05:00We've designed this part of Majors that it can be split in two,
05:03so if, God forbid, there's another pandemic, we're in a position to deal with it in a much better environment
05:09for our patients to prevent spreading infection between them.
05:12The new department being able to be split in two gives us a red and a green area,
05:17so a potentially infected area and a clean area.
05:21You've got to remember when there's a pandemic, there's still all the other bits of emergency medicine that happen
05:25and we have to be able to deal with both in a safe environment
05:28and the building absolutely gives us the flexibility to be able to do that safely.
05:31We're really, really excited to open the new emergency department.
05:36It gives huge benefits to our patients and our staff.
05:40Importantly, it's an emergency department that's been built from the ground up.
05:44The current emergency department is really old and not fit for the work that we get.
05:50This has absolutely been made for patients with proper emergencies that need emergency medicine treatment.
05:57It doesn't necessarily provide a new service, but just an enhanced one for those that are particularly unwell
06:04and particularly sick with medical and surgical and traumatic emergencies.
06:09All the pathways are still available to patients in the region to go to urgent treatment centres,
06:15minor injury units and indeed their own primary care service.
06:19So those services won't be added here, it's just enhancing the service that we've got at the moment.