Plans to enhance and expand emergency and critical care departments in Blackpool have been gathering pace, with further progress in a number of key areas.
Blackpool Victoria Hospital’s Emergency Village development will focus on creating a better Emergency Department together with the Critical Care wards, by upgrading facilities and adding capacity, enhancing patient experience across the Fylde coast.
Following extensive work consulting with staff, patient panels and external agencies, the project’s programme board have now finalised plans ahead of the business case submission for the capital funding from NHS Improvement and are ready to appoint a third party contractor for construction.
Emergency Village Clinical Lead for the Emergency Department, Dr Adeline Israel, said: “I am excited and pleased about the progress being made.
“Currently, our exceptional staff work under extremely challenging conditions of constrained space, shortage of manpower and high influx of patients with a wide range of needs.
“The Emergency Village can potentially close the gap on the resources by providing the right space and design, robust processes and pathways and attract manpower by offering a training environment that will be second to none.
“This, combined with education of the public to visit ED only during a medical emergency, will go a long way to make it a centre of excellence.
“The ED is considered as the A&E (Anything and Everything) department with high-user demands. Staff are stretched to a large extent already trying to meet these demands while even tolerating abuse and misbehaviour at times. A greater appreciation of their dedicated work is required for harmonious functioning of this pressurised, vulnerable and sensitive area.
“The Emergency village offers the hope of a much better environment for the staff to enhance patient experience and deliver high quality of care with improved outcomes. This hope continues to drive and motivate us. Therefore, I am encouraged to strive towards making this vision a reality soon.”
Plans will see a new Critical Care building constructed just behind the current Emergency Department/Urgent Care Centre. The current High Dependency Unit and Intensive Care units will move from their current locations, freeing up room for the Emergency Department to expand. 
Emergency Village Clinical Lead for Critical Care, Dr Rob Thompson, said: “We are really excited that we can start to visualise the new unit and the benefits to both staff and patients.
“The new unit will include rehabilitation areas, a space fit for purpose. The new patient rooms will also be more appropriate for the critical care environment.”
The Trust is set to receive close to £13m to develop an ‘Emergency Village’ as part of a national fund to upgrade NHS Services in England, subject to successful approval of the full business case.
Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust is also set to receive £8.2m to improve facilities and ensure that mental health patients on the Fylde coast are receiving care in the right place to support their needs.
A 3D ‘fly through’ of the proposed new Critical Care unit can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obVBOCJmxzE
You can follow the progress of the project on the Trust’s website at: www.bfwh.nhs.uk/emergency-village plus Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BTHEmergencyVillage and Twitter: @BTH_EVandCC