News stories

This month we're celebrating 15 years of Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.

Birmingham's first new hospital for seven decades opened on 16 June 2010 and it is a time staff involved will never forget. 

One of them was Jo Thompson, who was working the night shift in intensive care when the new QEHB emergency department opened in the early hours.

Jo, who is now Associate Director of Nursing at QEHB, had been a senior sister in intensive care at Selly Oak Hospital, and had an important role to play supporting the emergency department (A&E) at the time of the switchover to QEHB.

There had been a lot of anticipation and excitement about the impending move, which came as intensive care was dealing with military patients injured in Afghanistan.

She recalled: “On the night it opened, I was working the night shift. The people on the day shift were really doing all the work in preparing for the move -  the cleaning up, dumping the junk and preparing the patients to move the next day.

“So, the A&E department opened and as A&E was opening, we needed to have a couple of intensive care beds as well in case anybody was unfortunate enough to need that.

“Thankfully, nobody did need any support from us, so we spent the night shift, sort of familiarising ourselves with it. There was only me and three others.

“It was quiet. It was very eerie because obviously it's a big building and when it was pretty empty as well, it really did feel enormous.

“We were trying to prepare really the unit for the arrival of patients and support the the day shift when they were bringing the patients the following day.

“I remember the first night well. But coming back the following night when the patients had moved in, it was a very different experience. It was very busy.”

Looking back over the past 15 years, it’s the military patients who stand out in Jo’s memory.

“The were completely different to other patients we had dealt with and just to be part of the team who cared for them was a privilege, but also an education as well.”

Jo still finds the new QEHB building a nice place to work 15 years on.

“It’s a lovely building to work in and even now, 15 years later. Even now, it's still a pleasure, when you walk up to the building. There's still something about it, isn't there?’’