The Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital is a hospital specialising in emergency care for sick and injured patients, opened in 2015 in

Cramlington Cramlington is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, 6 miles (9 kilometres) north of Newcastle upon Tyne, and 10 miles (16 kilometres) north of its city centre. The name suggests a probable founding by the Danes or Anglo-Saxons. T ...

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on ...

, England by the

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS foundation trust which provides hospital and community health services in North Tyneside and hospital, community health and adult social care services in Northumberland. History The trust ...

Hospital

The Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital is the first NHS hospital purpose-designed to care for emergency cases. It brings together specialists across multiple

emergency medicine Emergency medicine is the medical speciality concerned with the care of illnesses or injuries requiring immediate medical attention. Emergency physicians (often called “ER doctors” in the United States) continuously learn to care for unsche ...

disciplines, has 24-hour cover from emergency

consultants A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization. Consulting servic ...

and is fully staffed on a 7-day per week basis. The hospital, which opened on 16 June 2015, cost £75 million to build, with a further £5 million spent on road improvements in the vicinity. An additional £15 million was spent on state-of-the-art diagnostic tools including static and portable digital x-ray systems, two

CT scan A computed tomography scan (CT scan; formerly called computed axial tomography scan or CAT scan) is a medical imaging technique used to obtain detailed internal images of the body. The personnel that perform CT scans are called radiographers ...

ners and an

MRI scanner The physics of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) concerns fundamental physical considerations of MRI techniques and technological aspects of MRI devices. MRI is a medical imaging technique mostly used in radiology and nuclear medicine in order t ...

. The hospital is arranged with specialist wards for

surgery Surgery ''cheirourgikē'' (composed of χείρ, "hand", and ἔργον, "work"), via la, chirurgiae, meaning "hand work". is a medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a person to investigate or treat a pat ...

trauma Trauma most often refers to: *Major trauma, in physical medicine, severe physical injury caused by an external source *Psychological trauma, a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a severely distressing event *Traumatic inju ...

cardiology Cardiology () is a branch of medicine that deals with disorders of the heart and the cardiovascular system. The field includes medical diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery disease, heart failure, valvular heart d ...

respiratory The respiratory system (also respiratory apparatus, ventilatory system) is a biological system consisting of specific organs and structures used for gas exchange in animals and plants. The anatomy and physiology that make this happen varies grea ...

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

and gastrointestinal cases, and has an acute medical unit and a

birthing Childbirth, also known as labour and delivery, is the ending of pregnancy where one or more babies exits the internal environment of the mother via vaginal delivery or caesarean section. In 2019, there were about 140.11 million births glo ...

centre. The intention of Northumbria NHS Foundation Trust is to consolidate the practise of emergency medicine at a single centre of excellence to improve patient outcomes. The opening of the hospital has led to accident and emergency facilities being downgraded in other Northumbria NHS hospitals including the

Wansbeck Places called Wansbeck include: *The River Wansbeck, a river in Northumberland, England *Wansbeck District—a former local government district in south-east Northumberland, through which the river flows *Wansbeck (UK Parliament constituency)—a co ...

Hexham Hexham ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the south bank of the River Tyne, formed by the confluence of the North Tyne and the South Tyne at Warden, Northumberland, Warden nearby, and ...

, and North Tyneside. The trade-off between better facilities and consultant cover, versus longer drive-times to reach the hospital, has been the subject of some controversy and criticism. It was announced in November 2018 that a new building would be constructed off site by the McAvoy Group, linked to the hospital, to house a purpose-designed 2,000 square metre ambulatory care unit with the capacity to treat up to 150 patients a day without the need for hospital admission. In February 2021 the trust launched a court case against Lendlease after significant structural defects were identified in the building. This has triggered counterclaims by Lendlease against several of its sub-contractors, including Balfour Beatty, over which firm is liable for the defects. The trust claims it will cost around £65 million to fully rectify them and they will need temporary facilities into which patients can be decanted while the remedial works are carried out. Following a pre-trial hearing in May 2022, the High Court set a new trial start date of 24 October 2022.

References

{{authority control Hospital buildings completed in 2015 NHS hospitals in England Hospitals in Northumberland Cramlington