Philip Ludlow, the Minister of State for Health, paid a visit to Queen’s Hospital, where he praised our staff for their continuous hard work to improve services for our patients.

He spent time meeting a range of our staff, to find out more about the improvement journey we’ve been on.

The minister was given a tour of our Emergency Department by Matron Amanda Smith. She told him more about how our patients are assessed on arrival to make sure they are sent to the right department to get the care they need, which is helping us to provide the safest care to the sickest patients.

The minister said: “It was encouraging to see first-hand the improvements being driven forward by passionate staff at Queen’s Hospital and I was grateful for the time individuals took out of their busy days to meet me.

“The work that staff at Queen’s Hospital are doing to redirect patients to the right services is encouraging, underlining the importance of freeing up emergency doctors to treat the most urgent of cases.”    

During his visit he also had the chance to tour our Critical Care Unit (CCU), which provides treatment to seriously unwell patients.

Lucy Gladman, Specialty Manager for Anaesthetics, said:

“It was a great opportunity to show the minister around our CCU and staff were delighted to have the chance to talk to him about the specialist care they provide to patients.

“The minister commented on how he found his visit really informative and that speaking to staff gave him a real insight into the amount of support we give to patients who require critical care.”

Pictured is the minister with Lucy Gladman, Dr Paul Bawa, consultant anaesthetist and Tom Dowle, lead nurse for critical care.