A host of new facilities have been completed at Walsall NHS Trust.

Contractor Skanska delivered a refurbished neonatal unit (NNU) and a new maternity theatre, handing over the projects earlier this month.

The new facilities will provide care for extremely sick and premature babies and will offer inpatient antenatal facilities, postnatal care and bereavement counselling for pregnancy-related complications. Skanska's team extended and altered the existing unit to form a new neonatal department, and added a new-build theatre suite adjacent to the existing delivery rooms.

Project Manager Ivan Hodkinson said: "Along with our work on the Walsall ICU, these two projects represent three years of complex construction works by Skanska at Walsall Manor Hospital. Thanks to excellent teamwork and collaboration with the hospital team, I'm pleased to say that they were all completed with minimal impact to the hospital's operations."

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Caroline Whyte, Walsall Healthcare's Divisional Director of Nursing – Children, Young People and Neonates, added: "Our staff can't wait to start working in this beautiful new, airy environment which is such an improvement on the existing unit. We've increased our provision to 20 cots – taking our HDU cots from two to four and our special care cots from 11 to 14 – and the extra space we have is fantastic.

"The construction has been a challenge in as much as parts of this expansion have had to be live and running alongside the existing unit. Staff have been so accommodating – ensuring safe, high quality care has not been compromised while juggling the demands necessary for a major expansion project – and I'd like to thank them for their patience and co-operation. They are all, understandably, keen to use this brand new facility which will also make a real difference to our babies and their families."

(CM/MH)