MAJOR plans are in the pipeline to demolish and overhaul the hospital’s accident and emergency to ease pressure on the department and ensure it can cope with future demand.
A new entrance and changes to the layout inside the entrance, currently divided between the A and E and physiotherapy departments, is needed to pave the way for a new way of working that will filter non-emergency cases to primary care clinicians to help reduce waiting times and avert a winter capacity crisis.
Karen Kelly, director of operations for Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said a new primary care streaming service will see the hospital have a joint ‘front door open 24 hours a day’ where people will either be directed to a GP service or in to emergency care.
“People will be seen by a senior person who within a short time period will decide whether they need to go see a GP or go to the emergency department,” she said.
Read more in this weeks Barnsley Chronicle
