Queen Elizabeth Hospital

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham is part of University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) NHS Trust, along with Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, Good Hope Hospital and Solihull hospital. UHB is the main teaching hospital for the Birmingham Medical School and is located close to the University Campus.

The Department of Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Peri-operative medicine is staffed by over 100 Consultants and around 140 trainees, Anaesthesia Associates and Advanced Critical Care Practitioners. The department provides anaesthetic services to 34 operating theatres and multiple other areas such as the radiology department, cardiac catheterisation laboratory, cancer unit and the dental hospital. The Intensive Care Unit is the largest in Europe and supports the wide range of tertiary services on site. In addition, an acute and chronic pain service operates and there are extensive pre-operative assessment services with consultant-led clinics running every day. The department also provides anaesthetic cover for Birmingham Women’s Hospital (BWH) for tertiary Obstetric services, 2 Gynaecology theatres and the fertility unit (more information under BWH section).

During and post-pandemic there has been some service reconfiguration but a wide range of surgical subspecialties remain on the QE site including e.g. cardiac and thoracic surgery (including transplant) neurosurgery, liver transplant surgery, renal transplant surgery, major head and neck reconstructive surgery and oesophageal and major abdominal surgery, including sarcoma. The critical care unit operates with approximately 80 beds supporting this wide range of surgical services as well as the Major Trauma Service. Access to training opportunities for surgical specialties not on-site, such as major vascular, robotic urology and tertiary paediatrics, can be arranged with other local hospitals on an individual basis.

The QE has an active postgraduate training programme with regular weekly meetings on current and topical subjects, journal clubs, interesting cases and morbidity and mortality meetings. In addition regular teaching is provided towards the FRCA examinations. Research is active in the fields of physiological monitoring, care of the critically ill, obstetric anaesthesia and analgesia and cardiovascular physiology and pharmacology.

Education centre:

A large education centre on the QE site with 5 lecture theatres and multiple seminar rooms. These can be booked on-line. Facilities on other sites in the Trust can be booked too. There is also a seminar room (the Chris Pugh room) on the anaesthetic corridor which is bookable by the admin team.

Catering:

There is a Costa Coffee in the main hospital atrium with a satellite outlet in outpatients. There is a WHSmiths and M&S food also in the main hospital and a hot food outlet and canteen. A second WHSmiths outlet is in the Heritage building near the Cancer Centre. On weekday lunchtimes, a hot food trolley comes to the main theatre coffee room to provide hot food to staff. There are card and coin vending machines in the theatre coffee rooms and a hot meal vending machine outside the education centre on the first floor. There is a coffee machine and fridge in Office 8 (Anaesthetic social space).

The department holds regular Coffee and a Gas events and runs a samosa fund which provides (almost) weekly samosa and spring roll deliveries.

Facilities:

Two rooms on the theatre corridor on level 2 are for the sole use of the anaesthetic and intensive care department. One is the anaesthetic workroom with computers and also a fold down sofabed for use out of hours. The other room (Office 8) has larger sofas, a recliner chair and a single computer. It serves as a rest area overnight. There is also Consultation Room 2 – a smaller office with a computer, which can be used for meetings. This also has a sofabed in it for rest out of hours.

For those working in Intensive Care, each of the 4 units has a seminar room and a coffee room. There are also a series of offices on the Area A corridor, two of which have recliner chairs in and the Pete Townsend room on Area D, which also has 2 sofabeds / recliner chairs in. Two rooms in the Admissions Lounge are also available as rest spaces overnight.

Showers are available in the theatre changing room.

There is an on-site health club called The Morris Centre with a swimming pool, gym, squash courts which also runs yoga sessions. There are several joining options, with more information on their website: Home | Morris Centre Club

Travel and parking:

There are two staff car parks and two patient car parks on site. Staff parking is at a premium and on some weekdays it is difficult to get a space unless you arrive early for your shift. Some people choose to park on local streets but these spaces also get used up and this is not secure. An on-call pass is available which allows for out of hours parking.

The QE is on many local bus routes and is less than 5 minutes walk from University Station.

There is secure bike storage outside the staff entrance to the hospital and a box of emergency bike repair equipment in Office 8.

Other:

The admin team can be found in Office 5 and the Group Manager is in Office 6, both on the theatre corridor. They will assist with weekly rota queries, leave and swap requests and locker provision (lockers are available in the theatre changing rooms).