THE first patients have been welcomed to a new £3.1 million expanded accident and emergency department.

The busy Royal Bolton Hospital has opened the extension which features five new bays, new equipment, improved staff working areas and facilities for patients.

It also includes six ward transfer bays, spaces where patients who have completed A&E treatment can stay while waiting to transfer to another ward.

The Bolton NHS Foundation Trust project has taken five months to complete.

A hospital spokesman said: "This is part of the trust’s long term estates and IT strategy, working to modernise facilities and improve the environment for staff, patients and visitors.

"Whilst the additional bays will not make A&E any less busy, they will ensure that patients needing to be treated in the department are done so with as much privacy as possible.

"As ever, we urge people to consider which NHS service could be used to treat their problem most effectively, and only visit A&E if it is an accident or emergency."

The £3.1 million was invested in constructing the extension — which was built into a courtyard adjacent to the ward — purchasing equipment and rearranging office accommodation to fit the new build.

The bays opened to patients on Wednesday with an extra nurse and healthcare assistant per shift being drafted in to support the expanded ward.

Bolton came under pressure in January as the number of people waiting to be admitted to hospital from A&E departments in England hit record levels.

Between December 1 and 29, 8,804 people attended the hospital A&E, and further 8,565 people sought help in January.

As a result the hospital, which had the smallest A&E department in Greater Manchester, failed to meet target treatment times of dealing with patients within four hours of their arrival.

However, chief operating officer Andy Ennis reported the performance was improving month on month.

Numbers only dropped slightly in February with 8,345 attendances and the latest figures provided by NHS England show 3,558 attended the Bolton A&E between March 1 and 12.

The latest NHS performance figures in England show emergency patients had the worst winter on record for being admitted to NHS hospitals, with a near five-fold increase in the number of A&E patients suffering admission delays over the last five years.

Council chairman of the British Medical Association, Dr Mark Porter, said it was time for the government to accept that the NHS was at breaking point and produce a long-term plan as well as increase spend on health.

He said: "Over the past few months we have seen unsustainable bed occupancy levels, increasingly delayed transfers of care, and unacceptable waits for A&E treatment. Targets are consistently not being met across the health system, and current trends suggest that performance will continue to deteriorate rather than improve.

"The weather this winter was relatively mild and we were lucky that there were no widespread outbreaks of illnesses such flu or the norovirus. Had this been otherwise, the NHS would not have coped and patient safety would have been put at risk.

"We can only tackle the pressure on A&E if every part of the system – from our GP surgeries, to hospitals, to community care – is fully supported and working well."