Hospital creates 3D tour of ‘wonderful’ ICU facilities

A 3D tour of Hull’s new £8m Intensive Care Unit (ICU) has been created to give people a chance to see some of the best critical care facilities in the country.

Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust opened its new 24-bed unit at Hull Royal Infirmary just before Christmas.

Critically ill and injured patients from across Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire can be brought to the unit for life-saving treatment as part of the trust’s role as a major trauma centre for the area.

Now, the virtual tour has been produced for the trust’s capital development team to support families and patients, and to assist in the training and recruitment of staff to the department.

Amy Lockyer, commissioning and support services manager with the team, said: “We believe we’re one of the first trusts in the country to offer this tour of our ICU unit.

“With visiting restrictions in place, we know it is not always possible for relatives to visit their loved ones in ICU unless it’s exceptional circumstances, so this tour gives people the chance to see where their loved ones are being cared for by our team.

“It also gives people who are coming to hospital for planned major surgery to see where they’ll be cared for after their operations, and to familiarize themselves with the unit.

“The tour’s also a valuable training tool to help staff who may be redeployed or recruited to the unit, and to showcase the wonderful facilities available at our trust as part of our mission to recruit the best possible staff to our part of the country.”

The 3D tour allows viewers to explore some of the three-storey unit, next to Hull Royal Infirmary’s emergency department.

They can take a look inside one of the 12 glass-fronted cubicles where patients receive specialist one-to-one care from the highly skilled and dedicated clinical team.

The tour enables people to “walk along” corridors, taking in views of the central observation area for staff, the donning and doffing lobbies used by staff caring for patients with Covid-19 and other infectious diseases, and the “quiet room” for relatives of patients, decorated in calming turquoise and blue tones.

Viewers can use their cursor and keyboards to look inside cubicles, featuring a Draegar ceiling pendant for essential services including medical gases, to maximize the floor space and allow doctors, nurses and other health professionals, such as physiotherapists, to perform their tasks more easily around the patient’s bed.