COLUMN: Investment is great for patients - by Paul Matthew – Director of Finance & Digital at United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust

As a Trust we have benefited from Government funding that will help us to improve our diagnostic services.

This has enabled us to invest millions of pounds in state-of-the art imaging equipment across the Trust and we are in the process of rolling this out to all of our main hospital sites.

A new CT scanner has recently been installed at Pilgrim Hospital Boston and will start scanning patients over the next few weeks. The new equipment will provide much more detailed and faster scans.

These will help to improve cancer treatment as patients can be scanned earlier, leading to a quicker diagnosis and being able to start treatment sooner.

The scanner will be housed in upgraded suites which will not only provide more detailed images, but also a better overall experience for our patients in Boston and across the county.

This initial investment of more than £1million at Pilgrim Hospital Boston is part of our five-year improvement plan to provide outstanding care for patients across the county.

This really is an exciting time for the Trust and the whole team has been looking forward to getting all of the new scanners up and running.

We are also making a number of other investments across our sites and seeing this imaging equipment installed is such great news for both patients and staff.

During the pandemic we have also continued to invest in our buildings and infrastructure at Boston, including major investments in Pilgrim ED, LED lighting, Fire Safety works, Medical device replacement including over £1million in Endoscopy equipment as well as improvements to our heating system.

All of these investments are part of our ongoing programme to give our teams the equipment and environments they need in order to provide our patients with the best possible service and experience - not only for today, but also for the future.

We also have big plans to deliver a brand new UTC and Accident and Emergency at Pilgrim. Lots of detailed work is taking place behind the scenes and we will be announcing more updates as our plans progress.