Wexham Park trust invests in A&E in urgent improvement bid

Work began on the £3m upgrade this week. The first £1m of investment was announced in July after the Care Quality Commission identified failings against seven critical standards.

HSJ understands the rest is being invested on the basis that the trust expects it will be allocated money from £250m which the Department of Health has said it will provide to support “winter pressures”.

The foundation trust’s investment will pay for a new emergency waiting room, enabling the existing one to be converted into a dedicated area to perform an assessment on all patients arriving by ambulance. There is also expected to be some investment in community services.

One well-placed source in the area said: “The health economy cannot wait for the DH’s decision about the winter pressures money as some of the planned improvement at Wexham will take time.

“We hope the whole economy shall be getting more than this but we are also going ahead to shape community response to winter pressures so when announcement is made we can get going.”

In the longer term the trust intends to spend more money on a complete accident and emergency rebuild, as the current unit was built to treat 70,000 patients a year but is seeing more than 100,000.

Monitor issued a warning to Heatherwood and Wexham Park last month, immediately after the CQC report was published. The measures placed a binding commitment on the trust to make sure it was able to meet demand for both emergency and elective care.

Frimley Park Foundation Trust is currently in talks to take over Heatherwood and Wexham Park. Frimley’s board has this month approved the outline business case for the acquisition, despite the latter trust’s care quality problems.

A statement issued by Frimley Park said: “The Frimley Park board continues to be strongly in favour in principle of acquiring Heatherwood and Wexham Park, subject to being able to complete the transaction without delay and with the appropriate level of investment for new facilities.

“The necessary assurances and support are being sought from the relevant authorities to enable further work on the acquisition to be undertaken.”