East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust has completed the latest phase of work towards realising an ambitious vision of developing an ‘Emergency Care Village’. The new extension, complete with extra bed bays and facilities for staff, is being built to provide a more streamlined service for patients. The most recent element of the project to be completed is a two-story extension to the current Emergency Department at Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital. This, alongside the repurposing of a former admin corridor has created 13 additional bays for treating people who present with ‘major’ illness or injury with the upper floor providing new facilities for staff.
Luckily, her daughter Ruby will be working alongside her on the same shift. Jacqui has been working as a critical care nurse at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust for 30 years. And after being inspired by her mum during the Covid-19 pandemic, Ruby decided to follow in her footsteps and switch studying for her business and economics degree at the University of Liverpool to nurse training. The 19-year-old is now a first year nursing student who regularly takes on bank shifts as a healthcare assistant on the critical care ward at ELHT. “I was shocked when Ruby told me she wanted to be a nurse, said Jacqui. It’s not an easy career, especially at the moment, but I hope she continues to enjoy what she does in the future.
Royal Blackburn Hospitals plan for extension of A&E department PLANS for a two-storey extension to the emergency department at the Royal Blackburn Hospital have been submitted. An application has been created by Adam Richardson from Gilling Dod Architects, on behalf of James Maguire of East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, for the grassed area next to the current accident and emergency department. In the planning document it said that the extension is to ‘provide Covid-19 emergency capacity’. It added: “The proposed development consists of a new two-storey extension linked back to the existing building providing additional clinical space at ground floor.