London Bridge Hospital opens its new and expanded Critical Care Unit

London Bridge Hospital has opened its new and expanded Critical Care Unit. The new unit now has 15 beds, of which 10 are in single rooms. This makes the hospital the largest private critical care provider between the South bank of The Thames and the South East of England, including Kent and East and West Sussex.

The new Critical Care Unit is equipped with the latest technology to provide the highest level of dedicated, continuous, specialised care to critically ill patients with a variety of medical or surgical conditions who require complex multi-organ support. The unit has a total of 10 isolation rooms one of which is a sophisticated and dedicated respiratory isolation room. 12 of the units 15 beds are level three and the remaining three are for level two care.

Carol Horsey, Head of Clinical Services at London Bridge Hospital said the new unit, with individual patient rooms, enables the intensive care teams to offer an enhanced one-to-one treatment service. “Individual rooms can aid recovery time and provide privacy for the patient and their family at a time which can be a very stressful and emotional period. The individual rooms also allow for increased infection control benefits for patients.”

Each of the new critical care rooms is fitted with revolutionary electrically powered ‘smart glass’ windows. At the flick of a switch the clear glass becomes opaque providing privacy when it is needed. At other times, nurses and doctors in a separate room can check on their patients through the windows.

“We can provide a range of specialist support services that other private hospitals cannot in areas including cardiac surgery, liver transplants, and neuro surgery,” said Carol.

The Critical Care Unit at London Bridge Hospital is staffed by a highly experienced multi-disciplinary team supported by consultant intensivists providing 24-hour cover. The multi-disciplinary team provide a number of additional services crucial to critical care, which include non-invasive and advanced medical ventilation, modern continuous haemo-dynamic monitoring systems and different modalities of renal replacement therapy.

John Reay, the hospital’s Chief Executive Officer, said London Bridge Hospital had an international reputation for the complex care it has provided for many years. “We have built this new and expanded unit to meet an increasing demand for critical care services. With the increasing complexity and the growing range of tertiary medicine we provide, the new CCU helps provide additional care and enhances safety for patients. In the future, doctors and patients should expect all private hospitals to have a unit of this standard.”

The new CCU at London Bridge Hospital is the latest of four recently installed in central London private hospitals owned by HCA International Limited. HCA is the largest provider of critical care beds in the country outside the NHS. One in nine of all its hospital beds is a critical care bed.