£17m refurb underway for emergency department at Luton & Dunstable Hospital

An artist's impression of the new emergency department

The scheme will provide an improved patient, visitor and staff experience in the department and for those visiting the hospital through the main entrance.

The L&D was awarded £17m to support the national directive to expand urgent and emergency care departments as part of the COVID response. The funding will support an increase in cubicle capacity, provide socially distant waiting space, and enable segregation of patient flows to support infection prevention and control.

The Trust have allocated a further £2m to the scheme to provide additional CT imaging capacity.

As one of the busiest ED’s in the region, with over 300 attendees most days and around 120 Urgent GP Centre attendees (also on the hospital site), the expansion of the department will provide enhanced capacity to support future service provision.

The entire scheme is due to complete in towards the end of 2022 and can be considered part of the Trust’s vision to improve emergency access and ensure rapid review and earlier decision making.

Once complete, there will be a new A&E entrance, increased sized waiting area, a dedicated paediatric A&E, additional cubicles, CT imaging, triage, mental health assessment rooms and support space.

Dr Georgie Kamaras, clinical director for the emergency department, said: “The expansion and refurbishment is a really welcomed project by the team. We are delighted to be able to improve our services for patients now, and in the future.”

David Hartshorne, director of redevelopment, added: “This is another really exciting redevelopment project for our NHS Trust

"Although there will be increased disruption and noise across the site, we are working extremely hard with our contractors, the local council and colleagues to ensure disruption to clinical services is kept to a minimum and that we remain mindful and considerate of local residents.

"However, we are asking patients and visitors to work with us as we work towards creating an improved hospital. Please do check our website before coming to the site.”