Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) has been designated a Major Trauma Centre to treat the most badly injured patients from across the West Midlands.

It will be one of four such centres across the region capable of delivering specialist care to people with major head injuries, severe knife or gunshot wounds, spinal injuries and amputations.

The others are based at Birmingham Children's Hospital, University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire and University Hospital of North Staffordshire.

They will all officially go live on Monday 26 March 2012.

The move forms part of a national initiative across England which will see a total of 22 hospitals become major trauma centres to give seriously injured patients a better chance of survival and recovery.

A National Audit Office report found many deaths from serious injuries could be avoided if care was improved. Evidence from overseas systems suggests that having a major trauma system could save 45 – 60 (20%) more lives every year within the West Midlands region, and 450 – 600 lives nationally.

Sir Keith Porter, Professor of Clinical Traumatology at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB), which runs QEHB, is the project’s clinical lead. He said: “We have looked at national and international evidence in trauma outcomes and are using that information to develop and improve on the excellent work that is already being delivered in the West Midlands.

“This initiative is all about a culture of developing integration and cross-cultivation of specialties to produce the best possible care for our trauma patients.”

As a Major Trauma Centre (MTC), QEHB will be supported by a number of trauma units and specialist rehabilitation units.

The hospital will receive patients assessed at the scene as being the most severely injured. However, major trauma care accounts for an average 0.1% of A&E patients so the majority of trauma patients who are less seriously injured will be taken to the nearest trauma unit or local emergency hospital. If these patients subsequently prove to have injuries requiring the services of the MTC, they will be transferred within the hour once their condition is clinically stable.  

QEHB is one of a number of hospitals in the region that have been chosen to be major trauma centres.  These hospitals are best placed to provide major trauma services because they have the full range of required trauma specialists, including orthopaedics, neurosurgery and radiology teams. In addition, patients who have suffered a severe injury often need complex reconstruction surgery and care plus specialist rehabilitation services to help the patient to make a speedier recovery and helping to reduce disabilities, which are all available at QEHB.

It is a national requirement in the NHS Operating Framework in England 2011/12 that all regions should be moving trauma service provision into regional trauma systems to make significant improvements in the clinical outcomes for major trauma patients. The West Midlands will begin implementation of a regional trauma care system no later than March 2012, with the QEHB MTC going live from 26 March.