Mid Essex Hospital

Department of Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery

Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, Essex

med-essex-hospital     

Address: Court Road,
Broomfield,
Chelmsford
CM1 7E
Phone:01245 515800
Founded: 1940
Number of Beds:800
Educational Supervisor:Bill Martin 01245 516435
Website: Mid Essex Hospital
Trauma Co-Ordinator:Jo Francis
07507 648362

Broomfield Hospital is the district general hospital in Chelmsford, Essex, and the main hospital within Mid-Essex Hospitals NHS Trust. It also serves the towns of Braintree, Witham and Maldon and the surprisingly rural neighbouring countryside. The local population served by the hospital is nominally 380,000 but probably more, and various regional and supra-regional services are located in the hospital including the Burns Unit which serves a population of 9.8 million. The hospital has about 800 beds.

The Trauma and Orthopaedic Department comprises 13 consultant orthopaedic surgeons, 2 consultant spinal surgeons who also work in the spinal unit in Ipswich, and one associate specialist. There are 10 middle grade surgeons of whom 5 are specialist registrars in higher professional training and 5 are staff grade surgeons. The on-call middle grade rota is 1:10. Currently the department has 9 doctors at the first tier, of whom 3 are FY2s and 6 are trust doctors. There is one trauma ward (Notley Ward) and one rehabilitation ward (Lister Ward). John Ray Ward is the elective ward, with a special protected status within the hospital such that patients may only be admitted to the ward if there is a recent MRSA-negative swab (www.bmj.com/content/329/7458/149 ); direct admissions from the emergency department are therefore not possible. There are four laminar air flow operating theatres.

The orthopaedic trauma service is based around a 1:10 week-on-call system which starts and finishes with a hand-over meeting on Friday morning. In this time all elective work for the first-on-call firm is postponed, and the 10 trauma consultants are job-planned to work full trauma days in the hospital on each of the seven days. The first-on-call firm then does a second-on-call week manning the new patient fracture clinics. The trauma day always begins with the consultant led trauma MDT in the Waddington-Moore seminar room. There is an all-day trauma list every day of the year. A change to a virtual fracture clinic on the Caledonian model is planned. The department contributes diligently to the National Hip Fracture Database (www.nhfd.co.uk/nhfd/2015db/bfh.pdf), and in 2015 Broomfield submitted 482 cases to the database, the third highest number of the 17 contributing East of England hospitals. The hospital is a Trauma Unit within the East of England trauma network, and has contributed to TARN for many years. Open fractures are routinely dealt with in combination with the on-site plastic surgeons. The department takes pride in its trauma service, which is regarded as the primary responsibility. When the trauma service is busy elective admissions are cancelled to allow timely treatment of injured patients.

The elective service includes the major sub-specialities as listed below. Team working within the different teams is developing as recommended by GIRFT.

Hip: Charnley, MacDowell, Martin, Raguvanshi

Knee: Palmer, Rees, Bosman, Bhargava

Foot and Ankle: Russell, Bosman

Shoulder: Williams, Datta

Hand and Wrist: Taylor, Lyall

Children: Tuite

Spine: Pagonis, Budd

The department has been pleased with its performance as recorded within the NJR

http://njrsurgeonhospitalprofile.org.uk/HospitalProfile?hospitalName=Broomfield%20Hospital

where between April 14 and March 15 the department performed primary THR 320, revision THR 48, primary TKR 281, and revision TKR 31. The department is not an outlier in any of the fields assessed.

Mr Bill Martin is the educational supervisor, and is responsible for allocation of SpRs to firms. The Broomfield Orthopaedic Department is busy and offers excellent learning opportunities within a cohesive and friendly environment.

Harry Lyall

May 2016

Useful contacts

Broomfield Hospital Switchboard 01245 515800 / 01245 441813

Trauma Co-ordinator Paul Heard 07802 280275

Educational supervisor Bill Martin 01245 516435

Senior Nurse / Co-Clinical Director Jo Francis 07507 648362