Stockport NHS Foundation Trust is to receive over £3.6m to help support its services face the pressures this winter, and plans for a major new emergency care campus have this week taken a big step forward. 

The trust, which runs Stepping Hill Hospital and community NHS services across Stockport, is to get a £3,611,000 share of a £18.437m package for Greater Manchester, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson said is to help hospitals “upgrade their facilities and improve A&E capacity”.

Last year the Government pledged £30.6m to fund a new emergency care and pathology  campus on the hospital site, and this week that major development for Stockport took a big step forward when the outline business case was approved by the trust’s board of directors, subject to their approval and planning permission being granted.

The new campus  is set to transform emergency care in the Stockport area. Providing effective care for different patient groups it will ensure that rather than all patients with urgent needs going to the same emergency department, they will be seen by the right people, in the right place, at the right time. It will include an urgent care treatment centre, GP assessment unit, and planned investigation unit, as well as new facilities for the hospital`s pathology services.

The outline business case has now been submitted to NHS England/NHS Improvement, and subject to planning permission being granted, building work is scheduled to start on the campus next year and be complete in 2023.

The extra £3.6m announced recently will support emergency care in managing the challenges of the coming winter by funding the relocation of outpatient services to ensure absolute separation of Covid and non Covid patients, the development of a new emergency assessment area for patients directly referred from GP surgeries, and the creation of extra cubicles in the department to enable more patients to be seen. The combination of these measures is designed to help with the annual increase in emergency patients the hospital sees in the winter.

Louise Robson, Chief Executive of Stockport NHS Foundation Trust said “Winters are always a time of great pressure for the NHS, and our emergency services, but the impact of Covid19 is certain to increase these pressures still further. So the additional funding is very welcome to help us cope with those demands this year.

But our emergency care and pathology campus is set to improve our services in the long term, and our clinicians have worked hard on developing a model of care for the future in which this new building will play a key part. Our Board`s approval of the outline business case is a huge step forward in the development of a campus that will transform emergency care at Stepping Hill Hospital."