A bright new future

Jul 4 2008 by Karen Wilson, The Journal

OVER the past 60 years, Northumbria Healthcare has invested in providing much improved hospital buildings and facilities for our patients.

Our aim is to deliver more appropriate services locally and we will continue to make changes and improvements to services provided out in the community.

We are likely to see more outpatient services, diagnostic services and more day care surgery closer to where it is required.

In 1948, the residents of Tynedale could receive their treatment in the War Memorial Hospital which had served as part of a network of hospitals treating war wounded.

Conditions were primitive and nurses struggled without basic facilities like hot and cold running water. To cope with the number of patients, 14 wooden huts were built to be used as wards and an operating theatre and x-ray room.

The threat of closure hung over the hospital in later years, and when the trust took over responsibility for Hexham General Hospital they set about planning for a new building for the people of Tynedale.

Sixty years on, Hexham General Hospital is now a £51m state-of-the-art hospital offering patients a stunning modern environment in which to receive their care. The hospital has excellent services and facilities including the majority of in-patients being in single rooms with en suite facilities.

Wansbeck General Hospital, which opened its doors in 2003, replaced Ashington Hospital which had served the community since 1915. Built at an original cost of £15,000, Ashington Hospital accommodated just 24 patients.

In 1948 it became the major hospital for the Wansbeck area, and after a series of extensions and building work, the number of beds gradually expanded to over 300.

Now the community is served by Wansbeck General Hospital offering a new modern environment with improved facilities and services. Patients are now treated in this award- winning, low-energy hospital with specialities including general medicine, surgery, orthopaedics, day surgery, maternity and gynaecology, outpatients and therapies.

There are even two new theatre suites equipped with a voice activated computer that enables surgeons to give commands to camera equipment while carrying out keyhole surgery.