THE UNIT
Facilities
- In-patient care and telemetry areas
- Theatres
- Intensive Care
- Cardiology
- Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratories
In-patient care and telemetry areas
In-patient care consists of over 45 beds occupying two entire floors. This includes a Progressive Care Unit, which is directly adjacent to the Intensive Care Unit and a 5 bedded day care unit. Patient rooms are either single or twin bedded. We are extremely proud that ALL of our cardiac in patient areas have telemetry monitoring facilities.
Each nursing station has a central monitor for observation and recording of patient status. Our highly trained and dedicated cardiac nursing teams are able to constantly monitor each individual patients’ vital signs. If a cardiac event occurs, such as a change in cardiac rhythm, the monitoring system will alert both the individual patients nurse and the nurse in charge of the unit, who will instigate treatment immediately if required.
Patients are admitted under the care of their chosen Consultant Cardiologist, and remain so until the end of their stay.
Our international status as a provider of medical and nursing facilities enables us to recruit from a diverse range of countries across the world. This diversity also reflects our patients, and this is just one reason why the Wellington hospital is an excellent choice for cardiac treatments.
Theatres
The Wellington Hospital has three dedicated cardiac theatres with a specialist team of staff in attendance. Our theatres are staffed with an international team of scrub and anaesthetic nurses, perfusionists and operating department assistants and persons with extensive experience in cardiac surgery.
We are proud to offer in addition to the normal requirements for cardiac surgery (such as Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump therapy) additional techniques and services that benefit our patients, such as blood and cell-saving and minimal invasive surgery techniques. Theatres also have a dedicated Echo machine and TOE probe for intra operative trans Oesophageal Echo imaging.
Our surgeons are further more supported by state of the art diagnostic and imaging facilities to aid them in their surgery including point-of-care coagulation analysis.
Intensive Care
The Wellington Intensive Care Units (ICU) has an international reputation for excellence in nursing and medical care, with many countries worldwide referring patients for various treatments.
The unit boasts an international workforce, reflecting the diversity of patients admitted. Each patient is comprehensively monitored at the bedside by their own dedicated one to one nurse. In addition to this, each patient’s clinical information is also monitored and analysed centrally by the nurse in charge.
The proximity of the unit near to the operating theatres means that any patient requiring emergency surgery can be transferred quickly and efficiently with minimal delay.
The Intensive Care Unit uses state of the monitoring equipment in order to comprehensively record detailed clinical information regarding the patients’ condition. Any changes result in bedside alarms to alert the bedside nurse, and also to the central monitoring station where the nurse in charge can view all of the patient’s information.
Medical care is provided by 24 hour consultant intensivist cover in addition to Consultant anaesthetist and Consultant surgeon cover. The unit also boasts 24 hour on site medical cover provided by Specialist Registrars.
Cardiology
The cardiology department is situated on the 1st floor of the North building and has recently undergone extensive refurbishment, as a result we now have a bright, spacious purpose built echocardiography and non invasive suite directly adjacent to our 3 cardiac catheterisation labs and cardiac theatres.
The cardiology department is fully equipped with the very latest equipment for the diagnosis and treatment of many different forms of cardiac problems from chest pain to heart attacks and palpitations to blackouts.
The department is staffed by a 25 strong team of highly qualified and experienced cardiac physiologists, nurses and radiographers. The cardiac physiologists’ carry out a whole range of diagnostic services for both inpatients and outpatients.
Non invasive diagnostic testing: Can be performed as outpatient
- ECG recording
- 24 hour ECG and Blood pressure monitoring
- 7 day ECG event monitoring.
- Loop ECG recorder analysis.
- Exercise ECG testing (stress testing)
- Echocardiography:
- Valve assessment studies
- Dysynchrony assessment studies
- CRT optimisation
- Stress echocardiography
- Contrast echo studies
- Single and dual chamber pacemaker function analysis
- Biventricular pacemaker function analysis (CRT)
- Implantable defibrillator (ICD) function analysis
Invasive diagnostic testing: Either day case or inpatient
- Cardiac catheterisation
- Coronary angiography
- Coronary Fractional Flow Reserve studies (pressure wire)
- Electro Physiological studies (EPS)
- ECG event monitor implantation
- TransOesophageal Echocardiography (TOE)
Treatments
- PercutaneousTransluminal Coronary Angioplasty (PTCA -balloon treatment)
- Coronary artery stenting
- Rotational atherectomy (Rotablation)
- Patent Foramen Ovale occlusion (PFO closure)
- Single and dual chamber pacemaker implantation
- Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) pacemaker implantation
- CRT optimisation
- ICD implantation
- Atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation
- Radiofrequency ablation for cardiac arrhythmias
- Cryoablation for cardiac arrhythmias
Unit information
Patients undergoing invasive diagnostics and testing need to be under the care of an appropriate Cardiologist before any of these procedures can be carried out. Most, but not all, non invasive diagnostic testing, can be referred by other Consultants or GPs, but in all cases written referrals or requests are required before any procedures can be carried out.
Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratories
Following the refurbishment, we now have 3 state of the art cardiac catheterisation labs and a fully equipped non invasive suite. The catheterisation labs are equipped with Philips and Siemens Xray imaging units. The Philips equipment is the most up to date in the UK and has many features which enhance imaging including ‘stent boost’ giving excellent visualisation of coronary stents during insertion. The labs are equipped to carry out fractional flow reserve studies in situations when radiographic assessment of a coronary stenosis is inconclusive.
All 3 labs have comprehensive ECG, blood pressure and oxygen saturation monitoring systems which are required for haemodynamic analysis. For our Cardiologists who specialize in electrophysiology and ablation therapies, 2 of our labs are wired for electrophysiological studies and are equipped with the two most up to date arrhythmia mapping systems available. They are also equipped to carry out either RF ablation (heating) or Cryoablation (freezing)
Our team of highly qualified and experienced radiographers, nurses and cardiac physiologists support an internationally renowned team of specialist Cardiologists in providing quality diagnostic and therapeutic interventions for our patients.
There are many techniques to acquire images of the heart depending on what it is the cardiologist wants to see. Most patients with heart failure, coronary artery disease, heart valve disease and cardiac arrhythmias will undergo an Echocardiogram in the cardiology department, and whilst a traditional coronary angiogram is the gold standard for defining the anatomy of the coronary arteries and treating coronary artery disease, our multi-slice CT scanner offers a new non-invasive way of evaluating the coronary arteries.
At the Wellington Hospital our referrers and patients have access to a state of the art GE 64-slice Lightspeed VCT scanner which is currently one of the fastest multi-slice scanners available. The CT scanner is also to obtain a highly detailed image of the chambers of the heart in patients undergoing ablation therapy for atrial arrhythmias.
In our MRI department we have two scanners (1.0T and 1.5T) on which we can perform scans to evaluate cardiac anatomy, functionality and measurement of the Left Ventricle, and perfusion of the myocardium.
Our specialty departments are well supported by a fully equipped diagnostic imaging department.
For more information please visit: www.thewellingtonimagingunit.com