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The first of two new wards at Good Hope Hospital opened on Sunday 21 August to help the NHS get back on track, following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The second new ward will open on Friday 26 August.

Waiting lists across the NHS have grown to the highest levels ever seen owing to the pandemic, and this was particularly serious in Birmingham, with hospitals seeing the highest number of inpatients with COVID-19 anywhere in the country.

This led to more than 17,000 people waiting two years or more for a procedure at University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) in the autumn of 2021.

But by July this year, the Trust had brought that number down to fewer than 100, with the remainder waiting for reasons of patient choice or complexity of treatment.

The Trust is now focused on bringing down the number of patients waiting more than 78 weeks for a procedure; while also working to improve other measures, such as a reduction in ambulance handover delays, and improvements to its cancer performance measures.

A total of 48 beds will be opened across both new wards at Good Hope Hospital to support the hospital site and the wider Trust.

The new wards will allow the extra bed capacity to be realised within the existing hospital estate, with wards 14 and 17 moving to occupy the newly- built ward spaces.

Ward 14 (Stroke) has moved into the new ground floor ward (Ward 28), with surgery moving into the new first floor ward, now Ward 29 on Friday 26 August.

The space Ward 14 and 17 vacate will then be reorganised and optimised for its new uses, providing the much-needed boost to the number of beds available to treat patients.

Construction of the new wards began in March 2022 and took just under six months to complete, with more than 70 lorries delivering the bulk of the ward in modules, during a single impressive bank holiday weekend in May.

New wards have already opened elsewhere in the Trust, with two wards having opened at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) in February.

A further ward will open at QEHB in September, and two new wards will open this winter at Heartlands Hospital.

Chief Operating Officer at UHB, Jonathan Brotherton, said the recovery of all of these targets and performance measures, such as the Trust’s elective waiting lists and cancer performance, is at the forefront of our minds each day.

Mr Brotherton said: “It is true that we were heavily impacted by the pandemic, more so than many other places, and that has been devastating for us as professionals. It was devastating too for our patients, and they really need us now more than ever.

“But I know we are best placed to turn this around, particularly with the skills, dedication and commitment I see in all corners of our Trust every day. We’ve seen this already with the near-elimination of the two-year waiting list.

“We can be really proud of everything we have achieved, such as adding four new wards already this year. This will be seven by the end of the year. While at the same time, we have been able to recruit hundreds of new clinical colleagues to support our teams on the ground.

“These new wards rising from the ground, so quickly, and with such fantastic quality, are a symbol of what we can achieve, and what we will achieve together.

“A huge thank you must go to our estates team, our contractors, and all those teams involved in expanding our capacity. This will really help in our mission to get back on track.”

While additional capacity, alongside a huge drive to recruit to new wards, are vital pieces of the puzzle in solving delays within the Emergency Department and bringing down waiting lists, the Trust has already delivered a number of measures that will, in time, ensure that waiting lists fall.

These include:

• The use and expansion of enhanced peri-operative care units (EPOC), which provide dedicated ITU-like support for complex surgical patients, allowing more cancer procedures to go ahead

• UHB is also now treating more patients with cancer than at any time previously, despite referrals having also grown. This requires the expansion of diagnostic capability. which is also happening, with Solihull Hospital providing more endoscopy procedures

• The new Heartlands Treatment Centre, due to open this year, will also offer endoscopy capacity that will ensure patients receive efficient and effective diagnoses and treatments.