New two-storey extension to Kettering General Hospital’s maternity unit gets planning permission
Kettering General Hospital (KGH) has started enabling works for a state-of-the-art extension to its maternity unit to offset the impact of RAAC concrete.
The hospital received planning permission from North Northants Council on February 26 to develop its plans for a two-storey extension.
This is set to be built behind the existing maternity unit, Rockingham Wing, and will connect to it.
Enabling works have included the temporary removal of some trees and cable diversions, with further work planned for the spring and summer.
Hospital bosses say it will help the hospital’s maternity and neonatal teams to significantly improve the care they deliver each year to about 3,000 families and their babies from the local community.
The new extension will re-accommodate some key services and improve the hospital’s overall maternity facilities.
Plans include:
Ground floor: A new location for the hospital’s neonatal unit (Special Care Baby Unit and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and a new bereavement suite – fulfilling the aims of the community Twinkling Stars Appeal launched in 2019. The bereavement suite is being designed with input from the trust’s bereaved parents’ group and Twinkling Stars Appeal.
First floor: A new 32-bed maternity unit to accommodate mothers before and after they have given birth in the delivery suite. The delivery suite will remain in its current location on the ground floor of Rockingham Wing.
The University Hospitals of Northamptonshire’s interim director of midwifery, Danni Burnett, said: “This new extension will enable a major improvement to our maternity and neonatal services for our local communities and create a much-improved working environment for our maternity team.
“The discovery of RAAC in the roof of our maternity unit in 2023 caused significant disruption and meant we couldn’t use much of the upper floor of our maternity unit.
"The extension will provide a much-improved modern environment for the families we serve offering much larger rooms for our patients all with ensuite facilities.
“The ground floor will be used to rehome our SCBU and NICU and these will be up to the highest quality standards expected of these care environments.”
The hospital is continuing to work on its plans for the total eradication of RAAC from the Rockingham Wing site.