LONDON — One of London's most overcrowded emergency departments is getting a complete rebuild. Queen's Hospital in Romford has secured a £42 million government investment to transform its accident and emergency department, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust confirmed this week, following 22 months of campaigning by staff, patients and commissioners.
The scale of the pressure explains the price tag. The department was built in 2006 to care for 325 patients a day and now regularly sees more than twice that number. The trust has described the current layout as a "rabbit warren" with no single A&E waiting room, a confusing route that leaves patients struggling to find their way, and rapid assessment care being delivered in inappropriate spaces because of overcrowding and corridor care.
The rebuild will add a new waiting room, dedicated resuscitation areas and private zones where patients can decompress. Plans also remove a corridor separating A&E from the rapid assessment areas to improve patient flow and monitoring, cut the walk from the hospital entrance to adult A&E, and deliver a transformed children's A&E alongside a new digital operating system for the department.
"It will put an end to staff working in cramped conditions," trust official Fiona Wheeler said of the project. Health Secretary Yvette Cooper credited Dagenham and Rainham MP Margaret Mullane and the local community's campaign for securing the capital grant, which the trust calls a landmark investment for emergency care across Romford, Dagenham, Rainham and the surrounding East London boroughs.
