Although Swindon's new hospital is only months old, managers have admitted that it is short on bed space. So new building work is underway to change that. BEN FITZGERALD reports.

WORK is being carried out to boost the number of beds at Swindon's new £170m Great Western Hospital by converting part of the building's top floor into a 36 bed ward.

The site was originally earmarked for the trust's administration staff, who were relocated to temporary buildings shortly before the opening of the hospital in December.

It is just one of many measures being implemented to boost the hospital's capacity after it was accused of being too small to cope with demands shortly after opening.

The Evening Advertiser revealed in January that GPs were being told to reconsider referring patients to the hospital because it was struggling to cope.

The problem was largely blamed on bed blocking or delayed discharges where patients are well enough to leave hospital but need continuing care.

The NHS Trust, however, also claims that the work is needed because targets contained in an NHS plan launched in 2000 need to be met.

It says the goalposts have changed radically since the design of the 541-bed acute was ratified in 1995, and the new measures are necessary.

The targets are:

n By March 31 next year, the trust has been asked to ensure that no patients should wait more than nine months for inpatient care non-emergency surgery such as a hip operation which requires a stay in hospital.

n The trust also has to make sure that patients should wait no more than six months for day surgery, where patients are able to return home the next day.

n Outpatient appointments, where a patient is referred to a specialist by their GP, should take no more than 17 weeks from referral.

To help the trust meet these targets, it has been given a further £12m in addition to its annual £100m budget. Part of that money is being used to convert the administration centre, as well as build a new 27-bed ward.

Overseeing the administration centre work is Owen Travis from The Hospital Company, a company subcontracted by developers Carillion.

"We are ahead of target to complete this work here," he said today.

"The workmen have already completed putting in the electricity and other services behind the suspended ceiling and are working on putting up the partition walls.

"We have made every effort to ensure that there is minimum disruption to the rest of the hospital, by using a lift to bring all the materials we need straight through the window. It is all going pretty well."

Because flexibility was always part of the design, Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust has been able to adapt to the rapidly changing requirements.

The new 36-bed general surgery ward, being built by Carillion, is likely to be complete by October.

The trust is shortly to apply for planning permission for another new 27-bed ward in a temporary building adjoining the main hospital building.

That is designed to ease the bed shortages until a new £27m Diagnostic and Treatment Centre opens for patients in 2005.

That will be a separate unit adjacent to the GWH which will cater for planned, pre-booked operations such as hip replacements and cataract removal.

It will have 118 beds and five operating theatres which will be able to perform more than 5,500 operations a year.

The idea is that by providing a separate centre for routine operations, it will enable the main hospital to treat emergency admissions.

At the moment, 90 per cent of A and E patients are seen within the target time of four hours and the trust hopes that the new unit will increase that figure to 100 per cent.

Chief executive Lyn Hill-Tout said that the trust had made a commitment to take on more patients.

She said: "We would not be able to meet this target without the extra facilities.

"The new facility will cost more than £1m pounds to equip and install.

"We already have in place plans for a recruitment campaign to attract the additional staff for the ward.

"When The Great Western was designed in 1995 there was no National Plan for the NHS with its determination to reduce waiting times for patients, something which requires more facilities.

"We have also experienced the twin issues of delayed discharges, when beds remain occupied by patients who are well enough to leave hospital but not well enough to go home without support and also an increase in emergency admissions.

"One of the reasons we moved to the Commonhead site was that it gave us scope for expansion and development and now we have the extra money we are hoping we will be given the go ahead by the planners to press on and provide improved services for the people of Swindon and North Wiltshire."

At the end of March, it is estim-ated that 6,000 people will be waiting for operations, down from 7,000 last year.

Latest figures released by the trust reveal that they are three per cent above the target for elective inpatients, five per cent below their outpatient target and six per cent below their day case target.