A MAJOR innovation to improve health care for people in the borough has helped to blow life back into Mount Vernon Hospital.

A new treatment centre, which cost £13m to build, opened at the hospital, in Rickmansworth Road, Northwood, last Tuesday (3).

The Mount Vernon Treatment Centre, which took 18 months to build, is for patients who have planned operations and the majority of surgery will be orthopedic.

The two-storey building went up alongside the Princess Christian Unit and the two units have formed one major new development with four operating theatres and state-of-the-art equipment.

Jacqueline Totterdell, director of operations at the hospital, said: "We built the centre to improve some of our theatre capacity and to really blow some life into Mount Vernon.

"Quite big services have been taken off of the hospital over the years but it still has a very large cancer centre.

"No operations will get cancelled because of emergencies operations because they will all be held at Hillingdon Hospital."

Patients will be able to book their operation on a date that suits them and because of screening before admission there will be a very low risk of infection in the unit.

Mrs Totterdell said: "It's a far more efficient set up and it's always nice to be looked after in a nice environment. Some of the buildings in the hospital are pretty horrible so we needed to upgrade some of our accommodation to encourage people from Hillingdon and Watford to have their operations here.

"People in the surrounding area are passionate about this place and they are very keen, as we are, to make sure Mount Vernon continues to live and breathe and develop on this site.

"We also hope at some point to redevelop Hillingdon Hospital."

A new car park is being built for the centre which will be complete by June this year and in the meantime the overflow car park and the car parks at gate 1 and 2 will be used.