Health and care services

The new hospital will provide the same core NHS services as today, including A&E and maternity. But it will do this in new modern facilities with more clinical space, providing a better experience for our patients and staff.

We’re working with our doctors, nurses and other health and social care professionals, alongside our health and social care partners, to deliver a health and care services strategy that will provide better outcomes and better experience for our community, inside and beyond Whipps Cross Hospital. We have developed a Health and Care Services Strategy (3MB) which sets out our vision for the way we plan to deliver care in partnership with other local health and care providers. 

In light of Covid-19, our clinicians reviewed the Strategy to assess the need for any changes and what impact this might have on our plans for a new Whipps Cross Hospital. Their conclusion is that our overall vision for its future health and care services remains valid, but we will need to adapt some of the detail in implementing it. Read more about our plans in ‘Health and care in a new Whipps Cross Hospital’ .

Improving care in and out of the hospital

As a health system we have three simple aims:

1. keep people in the local community healthy
2. if they are ill, treat them as close to home as possible
3. if they do have to come to hospital, see and treat patients as swiftly as possible and safely discharge them home

Through improved links with primary and community care more people will be able to access the new hospital via referrals from GPs or NHS 111, meaning fewer patients arriving as ‘walk-ins’ to A&E.

The redevelopment of the new hospital will provide patients with faster access to specialist treatment which will mean patients avoid unnecessary overnight stays.

With over a third more clinical space, the new hospital will expand four-fold the proportion of single rooms with the latest smart bed technology, so patients that do need to be admitted will have a better experience with improved patient privacy and dignity.

The new Whipps Cross Hospital will have a dedicated same day emergency care unit, supported by significant increases in diagnostic activity with a near doubling of the number of CT and MRI scanners in the current hospital. There will also be around 10,000 more day case operations with a near 50% increase of day case spaces in the new hospital.

In the future, to support patients to stay out of hospital we will be delivering more virtual outpatient appointments which will result in better advice and guidance from clinicians, and reduce the need for patients to come into the hospital.