PATIENTS are being asked to share their views to help the town’s hospital improve its urgent and emergency care services.

Great Western Hospital successfully bid for £29.6m of government funding in 2018 to expand its emergency department.

Now those who have used the Emergency Department, Same Day Emergency Care, Paediatrics ED, Acute Medical Unit, Short Stay Unit or Surgical Assessment Unit in the last 12 months are being asked to share their views in the form of a survey.

The hospital hopes to use the information they give to help create a more streamlined and efficient service.

A GWH spokeswoman said: “Following a successful bid for £30 million of government funding, we are making big improvements to our urgent and emergency care services by expanding and co-locating them.

“The views of the communities who use our hospital are incredibly important in helping us to shape our new services, and we know that our patients are best placed to feedback and share ideas on how we can make them better.”

The public only has four weeks to respond to the survey.

She added: “Then we will be using the feedback to work with our architects and designers to ensure that the needs of the local population are met in the plans.

“We want to ensure the public’s ideas are turned into tangible improvements in the hospital.”

Throughout the design and building stages, the hospital will be looking to patients, families and carers to be directly involved.

“We are also asking respondents to leave their contact details at the end of the survey if they want to be kept up to date on the programme of work around improving our urgent and emergency care services and will be sharing regular updates and designs with them,” the spokeswoman added.

Only those over 18 are allowed to complete the survey, but legal parent, guardian or carer can respond on behalf of somebody under the age of 18.

The survey includes questions about the first impression of the entrance and reception, privacy, access to toilets, safety of the department, the internal air quality and many more.

GWH also received £15m on top of the £30m funding to build a new urgent treatment centre which is currently under construction and expected to open in December.

To take part in the survey visit gwh.formstack.com/forms/urgent_and_emergency_care_services_patient_carer_survey