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Project: Ambulance Receiving Centre
Client: The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust
Location: New Cross Hospital
The challenge
Wolverhampton’s New Cross Hospital had its winter pressures eased thanks to a new Ambulance Receiving Centre (ARC) that was constructed by Darwin Group in just 18 days onsite.
The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust commissioned Darwin Group to design and install the ARC to improve the experience of hundreds of patients each week and allow paramedics to get back on the road sooner. With a total design and construction time of 46 days, the project made a fast impact.
The ARC, which includes 18 beds in bays, 2 toilets, a check-in desk, and dirty and clean utility facilities, provides an additional 17 ambulance offload spaces and formed part of the Trust’s plans to ease pressures on the Emergency Department (ED) over winter.
At the time of install, an average of 450 patients per day – 3,150 per week – were arriving at the ED. Approximately 100 per day, or 650-700 a week, of those arrived by ambulance and all are now received into the ARC, except those that need to be resuscitated.
“Although it is early days for the ARC, it is enabling us to release ambulance crews back onto the road quicker than before. The ARC is also a much better facility for patients waiting to be seen rather than the back of an ambulance and it also allows us to start the triage process sooner.”
Gwen Nuttell
Chief Operating Officer
The Royal Wolverhapton NHS Trust