Last moves from the old N&N

Next month will see the return of the removal men to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital as the second phase of the hospital transfer to the £229 million complex at Colney gets underway.

The first phase of Europe’s biggest hospital move took place over 6 weeks, starting in November 2001, and saw the transfer of 90 per cent of services from the old hospital to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH).

Now with the impending completion of the NNUH’s new 144-bed ward block, preparations are underway to move the remaining inpatient services over to Colney.  The moves will take place in five stages and the first will involve a reshuffling of wards at the new hospital in preparation for the transfer of the last patients from the old N&N.

Contractor Laings will hand over the first part of the new ward block to the trust in early August. Then on August 24 the hospital’s Emergency Assessment Unit (EAU – which takes emergency referrals direct from family doctors) will move from the NNUH’s Heydon and Kimberley wards to their new purpose-designed 62-bed unit next door.

The EAU move will take place on a bank holiday Saturday, normally a relatively quiet day, and GPs have been advised of the transfer of the unit.  Once five of the wards at the NNUH have reshuffled, following the transfer of the EAU out of Heydon and Kimberley wards, the second stage will involve the first patients moving from the N&N to the NNUH with the move of Medicine for the Elderly patients from the N&N’s Ashby ward to the NNUH’s Dunston ward on September 21.

Stage three takes place in November and involves the move of cancer services (oncology/haematology and radiotherapy) from the N&N to the NNUH’s Colney Centre which includes £20 million of state-of-the art cancer-busting equipment, including four linear accelerators – double the number the old N&N had.

By December the move of inpatients to the NNUH will be complete and the hospital will have 953 beds, versus the old N&N’s 952 beds. Early in 2003, renal services will make their move from the old West Norwich Hospital where they had 20 dialysis stations compared to the 30-station unit in the new block at the NNUH.

• A Thanksgiving Service will be held at Norwich Cathedral on Sunday October 13 to mark the enormous contribution the old hospital has made to the people of Norfolk and Norwich over the past 231 years.