New maternity theatre to be built at Tameside General Hospital

A new maternity theatre will be built at Tameside General Hospital.

Now plans have been approved by the council, the new two-storey building would be built next to the current maternity centre on a car park. The theatre building will contain the maternity theatre; a scrub/prep room; a recovery room; storage rooms; as well as changing and showering facilities for hospital staff.

It will be connected to the main maternity building via a linkway.

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Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust believe this new Fountain Street site, with 385sqm of floor space, will be a ‘sustainable solution’ towards improvement of maternity services.

Planning papers read: “This new theatre will allow patients greater access to planned/emergency procedures within the locality as well as supporting staff with increased and improved medical facilities.

“This additional theatre allows for a total of two functioning maternity theatres within the department. This greatly enhances the capacity for theatre procedures reducing pressure on other departments within the wider area.

“New and innovative modern facilities compliant to HTM/HBN standards will improve/staff experience which in turn provides benefits to recovery and standard of care given.”

This plan comes in the wake of Tameside General Hospital’s maternity services dropping from a ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’ rating with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The health watchdog explained in their March report that there had been a ‘deterioration in the standard of care’.