New £48 million emergency department opens

The new £48 million state of the art emergency department at Leicester Royal Infirmary has opened following two and a half years of work.

The facility has been designed to reduce stress for its patients and better serve the city's growing population, with features such as new rubber flooring designed to reduce the impact of serious injury by a fall by 15 per cent and purpose-built rooms for patients with dementia or mental health issues.

The new building also features seven treatment rooms for GPs and five rooms for ophthalmologists as part of the newly dedicated eye casualty, three high dependency bays in the children's emergency department, a waiting area in the adults' department for 130 people and 94 in the children's department, which includes a teenage waiting area, and 3 ambulance bays and a separate entrance for ambulances with no public access.

John Adler, chief executive at Leicester's Hospitals, said: “This new department is a massive improvement, not only for our patients but also for our staff. We are really pleased with the new department that we have created. It will definitely help up improve the way we provide emergency care, tailored care to our individual needs of our patients.”

Ben Teasdale, Leicester's Hospitals Emergency Consultant, added: “We wanted to design an Emergency Department to meet the needs of the patients that we serve. Given that a large number of our patients are frail and older, often with dementia, it was crucial that we designed a 'frailty friendly' department - the first of its kind in this country. We looked at other hospitals here and across the world, drawing on research, expertise and best practice to create the right environment, for all of the patients we see.”