Flatpack hospital arrives

5:27pm Friday 28th March 2008

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Leading doctors say Watford General Hospital's "revolutionary" new Acute Admissions Unit (AAU) will be the envy of green-eyed health bosses across the country.

Articulated lorries began delivering the £12 million giant prefabricated "modules" which will house the new AAU at the Vicarage Road hospital on Thursday morning.

And because of the way the state-of-the-art building is fitted together, the whole unit - which will end up catering for some 300,000 patients - will be built in just three weeks.

The new building has been constructed 200 miles away in York.

However, it has now been deconstructed and will be delivered piece by piece over the next 20 days and lifted into place.

West Herts Hospitals Trust has warned residents to expect disruption close to the hospital over the next three weeks.

However, once the 145 separate steel-framed modules have been fixed together, the new 120-bed AAU will be the biggest and arguably, most sophisticated emergency care unit in the country.

It will provide life-saving treatment for victims of heart attacks, strokes and other acute illnesses.

The new AAU will act as the "front door" for patients requiring emergency treatment, and once built, will include two cardiac catheterisation labs, to treat heart attack victims, additional assessment beds and more resuscitation rooms.

It will also have CT and ultrasound scanners, X-ray facilities and a new hospital pharmacy, accompanied by a robot to deal with the most toxic chemicals.

David Gaunt, clinical director for A&E in south west Hertfordshire, said the AAU was easily the biggest in the UK.

He said: "The largest acute admissions unit in the country at the minute I think is only 50 beds. So this is big."