Work to start on £44m hospital super centre

An impression of the four-storey Women’s and Children’s Super Centre (middle), situated directly behind the accident-and-emergency department on what is currently a car park at the Royal Oldham Hospital.

CONSTRUCTION work on Oldham’s landmark £44 million Women and Children’s Super Centre, which includes a brand new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, begins on November 2.

The development, which should be completed in December, 2012, will involve constructing a new four-storey building behind the accident-and-emergency department and the refurbishment of existing wards in the main hospital.

It also includes new delivery rooms, obstetric theatres, a paediatric theatre and more maternity beds.

And, once complete, The Royal Oldham Hospital will be one of three regional centres providing the highest level of intensive care to the smallest and most vulnerable babies.

The development will represent the largest capital investment made to date by the Trust and is an integral part of the Making it Better programme to improve children’s, maternity and neonatal services across Greater Manchester.

Mr Sola Amu, clinical director and consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at The Pennine Acute Trust, which runs hospitals in Oldham, Bury, North Manchester and Rochdale, said: “This is fantastic news for the Trust and for residents of Oldham and the surrounding areas.

“This new development is the end of point of many decades of carefully thought through improvements of maternity, paediatric and neonatal services across Greater Manchester.

“It is the ultimate outcome of the process of the Making it Better programme.

“With this development we will see significant improvements in the quality of care and facilities for women and children.”

Preparation work, costing £250,000 and including new utilities and essential engineering work, has been under way since the Department of Health gave the green light eight weeks ago.

Patients and visitors driving to the hospital are being advised that from Monday the construction site and main drive through the centre of the hospital site will be closed to vehicles.

Pedestrians will still be able to use the new footpath through the site and the Victoria Breast Unit will be accessible from the main entrance as normal.

The majority of roads within the hospital grounds are now two way, with signs directing patients and visitors.

The only car park to close will be the Chalmers Keddie, also known as the old pathology lab car park, which is mainly used by staff.

Zone 1 parking areas have now been solely allocated for the use of patients and visitors between 7am and 5pm Monday to Friday. Staff parking for 500 spaces is being made available at the Oldham Athletic Football Club car park where the Trust has an agreement with the football club.

This will leave the majority of existing car parks at the hospital for patients and visitors and special permit holders.

Graham Lord, head of estate development, said: “This is a huge development which has involved careful planning. A vast amount of preparation and engineering work has been carried out to improve and change the road layout of the hospital so that patients, visitors and our staff are still able to access the hospital.

“Unfortunately we have had to close the main drive to vehicles and we do apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. However, our priority is to ensure the construction site is restricted, people are safe and disruption is kept to minimum.”