Designs for one of 50 new Elective Surgical Hubs have been submitted to planners.

The £16m facility, to be built on the site of two former hutted wards at Hereford County Hospital, is backed by a Government fund aimed at tackling COVID backlogs and offering hundreds of thousands of patients quicker access to procedures.

Designed by ADP Architects and project managed by Currie & Brown, the standalone unit will provide a range of procedures including daycase surgeries such as war, nose and throat (ENT), cataract, and minor operations.

Alan Dawson, Wye Valley NHS Trust’s chief strategy and planning officer, said: “We’re working as hard as we can to tackle the backlog of patients which has built up due to the pandemic and this new facility will create a state-of-the-art unit which will help us maintain our elective surgery pathways in a completely-separate building.”

The two-storey centre will house assessment rooms, pre-op waiting rooms, two specialist operating theatres, a cataract suite for eye operations, recovery bays, and associated facilities including a reception and staff offices.

This new facility will create a state-of-the-art unit which will help us maintain our elective surgery pathways in a completely-separate building

Delivered under the newly-launched ProCure23 national healthcare framework for the design and construction of NHS capital projects, it will be constructed by Speller Metcalfe and, if planning consent is awarded, is set to open in 2024.

And sustainability is at the heart of the scheme, which is set to achieve a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ sustainability rating.

Adrian Speller, technical director at Speller Metcalfe, said: “We are right behind the trust’s approach to delivering on the NHS’s carbon reduction targets, which is a key part of this scheme and we will be supporting as far as possible with our sustainability expertise to reach the highest standards.”

Replacing outdated asbestos hut wards previously built in the 1940s, the new hub has also been designed with future flexibility in mind, using a steel frame to give the trust the option of expanding vertically should the need arise.