Work on major plans to expand the county's A&E department is well underway. 

Pictures released today by Worcestershire Acute NHS Trust show the foundations of the multi-million-pound investment beginning to take shape.

Once completed, the work will see the relocation of the A&E department at Worcestershire Royal Hospital and the creation of a new ‘emergency village’ on the site.

Worcester News:

Drawings show a 971 square metre single-storey extension to the side of the hospital’s Aconbury East ward which will house its new urgent and emergency care facilities.

A dedicated children’s A&E department will also be built.

The hospital trust said it further plans to move its helipad to allow patients brought in by air ambulance to go straight into A&E rather than having to be transported by ambulance.

Expansion plans were drawn up after £15 million was made available to the hospital trust to deliver improvements in urgent care facilities in the city.

People have been experiencing long waits at the hospital's A&E department, while queues of ambulances waiting outside the department to drop off patients have also formed of late.

Worcester City Council approved the plans in September, but it was feared the project may have hit a snag after a 'procedural issue' in the original application for planning permission meant a second proposal had to be formally reconsidered by the planning committee.

However, at a meeting last week the amended plans were given the green light, and the trust has since confirmed the new facilities will be open to patients by the end of 2022. 

A spokesperson for Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said: "Our brand-new Emergency Department at Worcestershire Royal Hospital is beginning to take shape! 

"As well as expanding and relocating the Emergency Department, the building work will also create an ‘emergency village’ hosting a wide range of diagnostic and treatment services.

"The work will deliver an improved experience for patients receiving emergency and other urgent care services, as well as providing clinical teams with a much better working environment."

Matthew Hopkins, chief executive of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "Despite the huge amount of hard work done by our urgent and emergency care teams every day, there is a recognition that on our Worcester site, the ED is simply too small for the volume of patients.

"This development will give us a bigger and better urgent care facility and that is great news for our patients and staff, but it is only part of the story.

"We have seen at the Alexandra Hospital how reconfiguring the ED and acute medical services has delivered real improvements in waiting times and patient experience and we are keen to build on that with the development on our Worcester site.

"The EDs and Acute Medical services at WRH and the Alexandra, as well as our Minor Injuries Unit at Kidderminster, all have an important part to play in our efforts to offer the best possible urgent and emergency care services to the people of Worcestershire.

"But it’s also important that we continue to work closely with our partners, including the West Midlands Ambulance Service, community services and GPs and other primary care services, to build a network of high quality, accessible urgent care services.

"Our shared aim is to deliver as much care as possible for our patients as close to home as we can. For those patients who really need hospital care then we will do everything we can to provide the very best care possible, while also ensuring that as soon as they are well enough we have everything in place for them to go back home."