Mobile complex installed in Ipswich

An innovative mobile healthcare solution is helping two NHS Trusts add additional capacity for essential procedures while they continue to recover from waiting time challenges caused by COVID-19.

Vanguard Healthcare Solutions is working alongside West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust and East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust to install a mobile visiting hospital complex at Ipswich Hospital.

The complex includes three mobile facilities including a mobile operating theatre , clinic and ward. Used for a variety of procedures, the solution is linked seamlessly to the hospital to maximise efficiency.

For the first months of its anticipated year-long deployment at the hospital, the unit served patients from West Suffolk to help the Trust clear the COVID-related backlog of patients awaiting procedures. For the remainder of its time on site, it will serve patients from East Suffolk.

As well as the three mobile solutions, Vanguard is also providing a team of seven clinical staff to augment the Trusts’ own clinical teams and surgeons who will work on the units.

Vanguard is the UK’s leading medical infrastructure company and provides a wide range of mobile and modular solutions for healthcare providers to help them increase capacity to provide essential patient care. Visiting hospitals include an operating theatre and ward, allowing for a complete patient pathway independent of the hospital’s estate. They include anaesthetic, operating theatre and first stage recovery room, reception/nurse station areas, HEPA-filtered environmental air and utility areas. All Vanguard mobile theatres also include anaesthesia and recovery areas, scrub area, changing rooms and HEPA-filtered environmental air.

Maxine Lawson, Account Manager South for Vanguard, said: “We are delighted to be working alongside these two Trusts in such a successful tri-party collaboration. It has been a huge success already with really positive feedback from the clinicians working within it.”