St John’s Hospital Update
Dec 2010
Fiona understands the importance of keeping healthcare local and welcomes the new groundbreaking services for St John’s hospital in Livingston. A new £8.2m short stay surgical centre is due to open in December. As well as offering state of the art services in urology, elective orthopaedics, it will allow more West Lothian people to be treated in their local hospital.
Patients and Funding
There have been considerable improvements made at St John’s hospital over the past three years. Inpatient admissions have increased by nearly 2%, outpatient activity has increased by 43.5 % and revenue expenditure at the hospital is up by 19% – showing the commitment that the Scottish Government has given to the future of St John’s as an acute hospital in the Lothians.
Maternity Services
St John’s provides essential maternity services, delivering around 3000 births per annum, which represents around a third of the total births in Lothian. Fiona welcomes the proposals to upgrade the Labour Suite facilities, providing en-suite facilities for all women. This work is due to start in 2011.
St. John’s University Status
Pre 2005 Fiona campaigned to ensure that the University status of St John’s Hospital was fully realised and she organised a meeting with NHS Lothian and St John’s staff for that purpose. There is now a full time administrator covering University medical training. A mid-fidelity simulator has now been purchased to help deliver acute care and enhanced patient safety training to all staff groups including a focus on undergraduate medical students.
Fiona said, “I am pleased that progress is being made and that funding for dedicated teaching space for under graduates has been assured.”The Research and Development database shows that there are presently 57 research projects at various stages underway at St John’s Hospital.
