NHS bosses marked a milestone in a £62 million project to modernise urgent and emergency care at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, in Brighton, yesterday (Friday 20 February).
And the longest-serving nurse in the hospital’s acute assessment service, Sister Gladys Gonsalves, cut the ribbon to officially open the new Acute Medical Unit (AMU).
She said: “Over the years, our unit has faced many challenges and undergone significant changes, with our services continually evolving to improve patient care.
“Having started my career when our medical assessment services were still based in the old Barry Building, it’s incredible to see how far we’ve come and the positive impact these developments are having on the patients we look after.”
The new AMU, on level 5 of the hospital’s Millennium Wing, is where patients with medical conditions can be assessed, have investigations such as scans and blood tests and receive prompt treatment from specialist teams without being admitted to a ward bed.
This allows them to start their treatment and recovery as quickly as possible and return home as soon as it’s safe for them to do so.
The AMU, alongside the new Surgical Assessment Unit (SAU) that opened in 2024, is also helping to reduce pressure on the hospital’s A&E (accident and emergency) department by taking patients who would otherwise have to wait there.
University Hospital Sussex, the trust that runs the Royal Sussex, said: “When it opened in 1970, the A&E department was built to manage 20,000 to 30,000 patients a year. It now regularly sees more than 100,000 annually.
“The new AMU also includes a new Medical Same Day Emergency Care unit (MSDEC) which for the first time extends 24-hour access to specialist care for patients who do not need an overnight stay.
“Overall, the AMU is designed to care for around 500 patients every week, by a team that includes 12 acute medical consultants, 30 other doctors and more than 110 nurses and healthcare assistants, plus therapists, pharmacists and other supporting colleagues.”
University Hospitals Sussex chief executive Andy Heeps said: “Opening our new Acute Medical Unit is superb news for thousands of patients today and even better for hundreds of thousands of future patients as it enables us to start renovating the main Emergency Department.
“Over the next three years, we will be modernising the old and tired A&E – but as the region’s Major Trauma Centre, we cannot close the department.
“Instead, we must complete the building works in phases alongside our teams providing life-saving care.”
Dr Heeps said: “It’s like conducting open-heart surgery on the hospital while caring for more than 300 A&E patients every day.
“So, I do want to be candid: this is going to be a challenging time. Our staff will be working in difficult, temporary and cramped circumstances and patients and families will also experience this.
“We ask for their patience and understanding because this is the only way we can deliver the excellent urgent and emergency care facilities our patients and hard-working teams deserve.”
Chief operating officer and former nurse Nigel Kee praised the expertise and resilience of the hundreds of staff working on the Acute Floor.
He said: “The successful delivery of SAU and AMU is down to the incredible hard work of all our clinical, project, and support teams.
“Their collaboration has been invaluable in getting us to this point and I want to praise every member of staff involved for their dedication to improving care for our patients while working under such sustained pressure.”
The six-year £62 million project to modernise the area where urgent and emergency care is provided started in 2023 and is due for completion in 2029.
Does this mean the position of the corridor care manager is now redundant ?
In theory, it will reduce the pressure, although experience tells me that criteria for these can be tight.
The new unit is certainly very good news. I did wonder, though, why the Royal Sussex is re-inventing the wheel.: About 20 years ago, St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester – which is now but was not then part of the same Trust – opened an Acute Medical Unit, which then became a Medical Assessment Unit and has now been repurposed. Perhaps nobody at the Trust remembers.