CONTINGENCY plans have been implemented to relieve pressure on the accident and emergency unit at Warrington Hospital.

A new urgent care unit at Halton Hospital is now partially open and is helping to reduce queues.

It opens fully in July.

An investment of £800,000 has opened the Daresbury unit for community care to free up beds.

A surgical ward is being turned into a medical one.

A new assessment process has reduced patients admitted into emergency surgery.

Simon Wright, deputy chief executive of Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The combination of these things is starting to allow A&E to have an easier time.

“We are looking to do some more work with primary care to look at a different way of managing some of those patients who will attend A&E who probably really don’t need to and see if we can decongest our A&E a little bit that way.

“One of the ways we have done this is by partially opening an urgent care unit at Halton which will open fully in July.”

Around 106,000 patients came through A&E and Halton’s unit this year.

Two new A&E consultants, bringing the total to 10 and 10 new nurses have been recruited.

There has been an increase in patients in their 90s.

Nine out of 10 people have been seen on average in about two and a half hours in A&E.