In reply to the letter which you printed on Tuesday from GCW Young, I enclose the information which he has requested on the square footage of floor space between the current hospital and that planned at Common-head.

In summary you can see that the clinical space increases by 6,866 square feet and that Trust Management and Finance are one of the few departments in the hospital where space is actually decreasing quite significantly.

This table bears out the points that we have been making about the new hospital in that there is significant increase in critical parts of the hospital.

For example I would draw your readers' attention to the A&E/Ambulatory Admissions Unit and Critical Care where we will have a significant increase in space.

This space does not include the additional 60 bed unit that we are also currently planning on the Commonhead site and further supplementary beds which the Primary Care Group are working on.

These will support the new hospital and will provide more appropriate accommodation for people who have been treated and passed through the acute phase of their hospital episode.

I fully accept the points that have been made that it it unacceptable for any patient to be treated on anything other than a bed.

We are currently in the process of opening another 22 day beds at a nursing home in Chiseldon and a further 21 will open supporting the hospital after Christmas.

The problem was that the opening was delayed beyond the date that we were expecting, which was September, due to matters out with the control of the Trust and it was just not possible to make any other contingency arrangements due to lack of any other available space within Swindon or the locality.

Martinsell Ward is the Acute Admission ward and is planned for a maximum stay of 24 hours.

It is where people are assessed as to their diagnosis before they are moved to a permanent ward.

Ideally we would like to be able to offer single sex cubicles but with the very rapid turnover of this ward, that is not feasible.

Again within the new hospital 30 per cent of our beds will be in single rooms and as this is a significant improvement on the NHS norm that will obviously give us much greater flexibility in being able to accommodate people with the appropriate privacy that they should expect.

If anyone is interested, my office is in a converted residential block we moved last year to give the prime ground floor space to clinical staff.

It has three chairs in it and I'd be very happy for your reader to occupy one of them if they wanted to come and talk to me about the new hospital or the hard work that managers put into supporting the clinical staff within the Trust.

SONIA MILLS

Chief Executive

PMH

Swindon