Shropshire Star

Public gets first look inside Shropshire's new £28 million hospital baby unit

[gallery] Shropshire's £28 million NHS women and children's centre is ready to open – and people were getting their first look at it this weekend.

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The state-of-the-art building at Telford's Princess Royal Hospital officially opens on September 29 and 30. It is set to become the main facility providing care for women and children for Shropshire and Mid Wales.

Hospital bosses confirmed that everything is on target for the launch after years of hard work and painstaking planning.

More than 750 staff will relocate to the site, which boasts modern facilities, spacious suites and ground-breaking training and simulator rooms. The aqua suite will allow more women than ever to have the option of a water birth and the £15,000 robotic "Baby Harry" is set to give training a boost across the county.

This preview event, taking place yesterday and and today, gave people a chance to tour the building and meet those who will work at the site.

Kate Shaw, programme manager for the future configuration of hospital services at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said: "We have spent a lot of time planning and everything is on target. There are just a few finishing touches.

"We appreciate that it is a change to how things are but the new facilities are absolutely fantastic and all of the staff are really looking forward to working here."

The centre will be used for women who need a consultant-led birth, overnight gynaecology services, children's oncology and haematology care and for babies who need intensive and special care.

Part of the building is already being used, as the hospital's children's ward moved from the first floor into its former location on the ground floor, which has been refurbished and is now part of the new centre.

The rest of the centre, excluding the not quite completed gynaecology suite, is due to open at the end of the month.

Cathy Smith, women and children's care group director and head of midwifery at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said they were very much handicapped by the size and the age of the current building in Shrewsbury.

She said: "The new unit in Telford will offer patients and their families more choice and more up-to-date facilities."

The new facilities would not have been possible without a £100,000 grant from The Walker Trust, a charity that funds education and training for medical students.

The new building has, in part, been shaped by the very people who will use it. Staff members and focus groups helped to choose the colour schemes as well as decide a theme for each of the three new departments.

While the service is changing, most people will continue to go to the same hospital as they do now. Both the Princess Royal Hospital and the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital will still have a midwife-led unit, a children's assessment unit, as well as outpatient services.

Women having a low-risk birth will still be able to choose to have their baby at home, at one of our five midwife-led units at Oswestry, Bridgnorth, Ludlow, Shrewsbury, or Wrekin, or one of the midwife-led units provided by the Powys Teaching Health Board.

Those who use the new Telford centre will later have the option to be transferred to one of these sites.

Sue Brown, who is the clinical education midwife for the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said: "The doctors, midwives and other hospital staff are all very excited. "

She added: "The new facilities will be such an improvement for everyone."

For more information about the Shropshire Women and Children's Centre visit www.sath.nhs.uk/future, email future@sath.nhs.uk or call (01743) 261183.

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