Fantastic news for West Cumbria as next phase of WCH development gets final approval

Anyone who regularly visits the West Cumberland Hospital (WCH), as I do, cannot have failed to notice that building works and preparations have been proceeding at pace as some of the older wings replaced in the first major redevelopments funded and signed off by the Coalition and Conservative governments have been removed in preparation for the construction of more new hospital facilities. 

Yesterday it was confirmed that the £40 million investment plan for those new facilities has been approved, a fantastic development for West Cumbria.




A £40 million investment to deliver phase 2 of the WCH redevelopment has been approved by NHS Improvement.  It will bring a huge upgrade in facilities for both patients and staff creating a better environment, retaining bed capacity and services for the site and improving the capacity to undertake additional planned operations in the future.

North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust has developed an ambitious plan to replace approximately 40% of the original structure at WCH and build upon the £90m phase 1 of the project which was completed in 2015 and on other developments since such as the improvements to A&E which have been taking place this month.. 

Demolition of the previous hospital buildings replaced by the new facilities which opened in 2015 has already been undertaken to make way for 60 inpatient beds, encompassing Elderly Care, Step Down facilities and End of life care. The plans also include a Short Stay Paediatric Assessment Unit, Assessment area and 7 inpatient beds.

The formal approval of the Outline Business Case is a key milestone in the project, and the next phase will be to further engage with staff and the community to develop final detailed designs for the Final Business Case (FBC) by the end of June 2021.  

The Trust will hold virtual events for staff and the wider community to gather views and feedback on the plans.

Lyn Simpson, Chief Executive said:

“We’re thrilled that the outline business case has been approved by NHS Improvement and is a proactive step towards the next stage of development.  This sends a very positive signal about the future of healthcare provision in West Cumbria and following an incredibly difficult year for our staff and the community, this news couldn’t come at a better time. The approval of the £40 million scheme will allow us to move forward with our ambitious plans for phase 2 of the build.”

People can find out more about the plans by visiting our website and can ask questions by attending our virtual meetings dates will be confirmed via our website in the coming days.

Work is now underway to develop the Full Business Case which will be submitted to NHS Improvement in June.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the...
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more