An extra £3 million cash is to be injected into front line services at St Helier Hospital's beleaguered casualty department.

The money will be used to almost double the size of the cramped accident and emergency department and has been welcomed by staff, nurses and management alike.

The new department will include a dedicated psychiatric area and extra treatment rooms, greater security for patients and staff, observation for patients, facilities for staff, a separate minor injuries and stretcher areas as well as a children's unit with its own procedures theatre.

A and E consultant Dr Lindsey Stevens said the expansion will bring improvements in privacy and dignity for patients and an end to waiting in corridors.

He said: "The staff of the department are very grateful for the great support given to the expansion project by our colleagues in the trust and by the health authorities."

The unit will take two years to complete and work will begin in February 1999.

But the Carshalton hospital has missed out on a share of £1.4 million cash for children's intensive care which was announced this week.

Neither St Helier Hospital nor the new Queen Mary's Hospital for Children on the same Wrythe Lane site has a children's intensive unit. The nearest intensive care unit is at St George's Hospital in Tooting.

And Geoff Martin of the London Health Emergency says the long journey from the area could be costing lives. He said: "Time is of the essence when we are talking about extremely sick children who are having to be transported - often by air ambulance - great distances to centralised specialist units in central London.

"There is a strong case for a specialist paediatric intensive care unit somewhere closer to Surrey and South London."

St Helier NHS Trust spokesman Helena Reeves said that the trust has one paediatric high dependency bed sited within intensive care and that eight to 10 children a year needed transfer to specialist units.

She said: "Children requiring intensive care are best treated in larger units where a high volume of patients are seen, and which maintains the life-saving skills and competencies needed. This means that regions have fewer Paediatric Intensive Care Unit centres but have highly trained specialist staff achieving better outcomes for children."

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