Bedford Hospital, Bedfordshire

The need

Bedford Hospital serves a population of more than 270,000 people in north and mid Bedfordshire and was looking to expand and improve its endoscopy services. More than 9,000 patients passed through its Endoscopy Department each year, with that figure rising by 20% annually. The Trust undertook a multi-million-pound development of the department, with extensive work planned which posed a risk of potential disruption to the services offered at the hospital.

The Vanguard plan

To counter any potential disruption to the services provided to patients, Vanguard Healthcare Solutions worked with the hospital to develop a plan to use a mobile endoscopy suite to deliver a total clinical solution for endoscopic treatment, allowing the trust to use it as a standalone facility if necessary.

The Vanguard solution

As well as a purpose-built procedure room, the facility housed a four or eight bed recovery ward, a reception, a waiting room and a discharge area. It also featured a pass-through endoscope washer/disinfector and a storage cabinet for clean endoscopes once they had been reprocessed. This provided a complete decontamination pathway for endoscopes within the mobile facility, helping it to be self-sufficient.

The outcome

On site for a year, the suite supplemented the hospital’s procedure rooms throughout their development project and enabled the Trust to deliver vital diagnostic and therapeutic treatment for more than 2,500 patients. The additional capacity allowed the department to maintain efficient patient flow throughout the development.

Colette Marshall, Bedford Hospital Medical Director, told us: “The development of our endoscopy facility exhibits our commitment to offering the best quality of care for our patients, both now and in the future. It was essential to us that the long-term improvements that took place did not affect our patients’ access to treatment in the short-term. Vanguard’s mobile Healthcare Space allowed us to offer unbroken access to endoscopic treatments.”