Sutton Cottage Hospital is set for an £8.5 million refurbishment to transform it into a dedicated centre for the elderly
Plans have been submitted for a multimillion-pound renovation of a Sutton Coldfield hospital to make it a ‘one-stop shop’ for the elderly. Sutton Cottage Hospital, located in the town centre, founded in 1908’so that accident sufferers did not have to be carried to Birmingham at great pain and difficulty’.
The red-brick structure has been expanded and renovated throughout the years, and it currently offers a wide range of services, including physiotherapy, paediatrics, Parkinson’s disease management, and ‘youth open door’. HPV vaccinations are available in leg ulcer clinics, as well as heart failure treatments.
However, Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BCHC), with the support of the town’s MP Andrew Mitchell, has proposed spending £8.5 million to transform it into an older adult outpatients’ hub with diagnostics facilities – an integrated healthcare hub for older people in north Birmingham.
The hospital will be redesigned to focus on the over-65s, with extra consultation/examination rooms, a new lift to the first level, a new outdoor courtyard space, and a variety of services for the elderly.
These will comprise primary care, community care, diagnostics, therapy, a bookable clinic, exercise areas, and services such as wound care, respiratory, diabetes, podiatry, elderly/frailty, chronic kidney disease, musculoskeletal, and mental health. A new chest X-ray facility will be built in an addition.
Diagnostics will include X-rays, ECG, ultrasound, spirometry, echocardiography, phlebotomy. There will be seven consultation rooms downstairs and five upstairs ‘to support surge capacity’ and ‘other seasonal demands’ like winter increases or vaccinations.
The goal is for services to work together to ‘avoid duplicate referrals’, allowing patients to see numerous specialists in a single visit, ‘delivering a more tailored diagnostic experience and a more holistic preventative strategy thanks to signposting to community guidance and assistance’.
The renovated facility would have ‘enhanced capacity to see patients, enhancing access to care’. There will be a focus on ‘prevention’ to keep patients from having to visit high-demand ‘acute’ services like A&E or see a GP to receive primary care. The site will also include three new staff/disabled parking places accessible from Duke Street. A general practitioner’s practice will also be relocated.
Work will be done in phases so that the hospital can continue to function. And while it does, a modular portacabin will be erected in Duke Street car park, temporarily occupying 22 of its spaces for a maximum of 102 weeks – nearly two years – while work is being done.
