Today (1 May 2020) marks exactly one year since we welcomed our first patients to our new hospital on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
In the last 12 months, we have cared for around 50,000 patients. We have performed 15,300 procedures (including 76 heart, heart-lung or lung transplants), held 68,100 outpatient appointments and discharged 21,600 inpatients. We also recruited 550 new starters, meaning that almost a third of our workforce has joined us in the last year.
In July 2019, we welcomed Her Majesty The Queen to open the new hospital and in October, we became the first hospital trust in the country to receive an ‘outstanding’ rating in all five domains assessed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
A year on from the hospital move, Royal Papworth Hospital is playing a vital role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, caring for some of the most seriously ill patients from across the region. Since the beginning of the outbreak, Royal Papworth has cared for 110 patients with confirmed COVID-19, the majority of whom needed intensive care.
Our thoracic surgery team on 1 May 2019
Our purpose-built hospital has proved incredibly useful in dealing with COVID-19
Professor John Wallwork CBE, Chairman of Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Our purpose-built hospital - with its single patient rooms, air ventilation system and flexible layout - has proved incredibly useful in dealing with COVID-19 - a highly infectious, airborne disease. We would simply not have been able to respond to the virus as effectively had we still been at our old site. And our experience of having recently moved a hospital has been invaluable in responding to a critical incident.”
“However, the current pandemic has tested our capacity to adapt and respond even further. When we first heard about this new coronavirus in the new year, we could never have predicted much we would be called upon to change our practices, increase our capacity, develop new skills and summon every ounce of our collective knowledge, compassion and resilience.”
He added: “I would like to thank each and every one of our staff for their hard work in the last 12 months, and especially for the way they have coped with the challenges of COVID-19. The last year will no doubt be remembered as a very important one in our history.”