Our services at Dewsbury

Dewsbury and District Hospital is home to a large range of services, usually for patients living in the North Kirklees district. The hospital provides urgent and emergency care as well as diagnostics, elective care, midwife services and care of the elderly services. The hospital treats over 340,000 patients every year. 

The hospital has a 24 hours a day, 365 days a year A&E which is consultant led and provides full resuscitation services. The unit also includes a Walk-In Centre which is provided by a partner organisation, Locala. The A&E, refurbished in 2017 to provide modernised facilities, treats a range of urgent and emergency patients: in any one year the department treats over 90,000 patients, with around 13,000 of these patients being seen in the Walk-In Centre. 

The hospital also has a Children’s A&E open 24 hours and a Children’s Assessment Unit, open 12 hours a day, 365 days a year and staffed by specialist paediatric doctors and nurses. The unit monitors and treats around 1800 children a year, with many being discharged straight from the unit back to their home. If children require more specialist care, they are transferred to the paediatric unit at Pinderfields Hospital. 

Dewsbury and District Hospital houses our unit for Acute Care of the Elderly, which provides high quality care to some of our most vulnerable patients. The team work collaboratively with community and social services to provide rapid diagnosis and treatment and, in recognition that a lengthier hospital stay is often not the best thing for these patients, to discharge them back to their place of residence where appropriate as quickly as possible. So that our more frail or vulnerable elderly patients can avoid longer and often stressful waits in A&E, the unit also takes direct referrals from our A&Es and from GPs. In 2018/19 the unit admitted and treated more than 3,800 patients.

The hospital is also home to the Trust’s Complex Neuro Rehabilitation Unit, which provides treatment and support for people with complex neuro disabilities resulting from stroke, brain injury and multiple sclerosis along with other conditions. In addition, the unit provides rehabilitation for Dewsbury patients who have been treated at the Pinderfields Hospital Hyper Acute Stroke Unit.

Dewsbury and District Hospital provides day case and elective inpatient services across a large range of specialties such as general surgery, gastroenterology, urology and orthopaedics. Across all specialties the hospital has nearly 17,000 admissions per year.

In 2016 the Trust built the Bronte Birth Centre at Dewsbury. The midwifery-led unit, staffed by our skilled and knowledgeable midwives, offers four ensuite birth rooms that provide a comfortable home from home atmosphere, with two state of the art birthing pools. 

In addition to the services provided by the Trust, Dewsbury Hospital hosts a Kidney Dialysis Unit provided by Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. The unit allows patients to have their dialysis closer to home, avoiding the need to travel to Leeds for treatment. 

We have also introduced telemedicine technology into Dewsbury and District Hospital so that patients with certain conditions can be reviewed by the relevant consultant surgeon on call at Pinderfields, resulting in fewer patients from the Dewsbury area being required to make a visit to Pinderfields.

In 2018 the CQC described Dewsbury Hospital as being unrecognisable from previous years having undergone major transformation, and we continue to invest heavily in the hospital’s future. As part of a £30 million investment project to take place over the next 13 years, we have already transformed two of our x-ray rooms, with state of the art digital equipment and Visualite wall tiles, to provide a better environment and overall experience for our younger patients and those living with dementia. An unused courtyard area has been transformed into a garden to help in the rehabilitation of patients and provide some outdoor space for everyone to enjoy, and more than £2.5 million has been put into a complete renovation of the elective orthopaedic and mixed surgery wards. 

This redesign took place in close consultation with matrons on the wards to ensure nursing teams have an environment and layout which enables them to give the best patient care possible. 

Future plans include upgrades to medical wards and operating theatres, new day case units, a new pathology lab and specialist diagnostic equipment.