A new community hub has opened at St Peter’s Hospital to help make sure patients were discharged as soon as they needed to be.

It is a joint venture between Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Surrey County Council, Surrey Community Health and the British Red Cross.

The unit will focus on helping patients staying in the hospital’s short stay medical admissions unit and on those who could be safely and quickly discharged from accident and emergency.

Councillor Michael Gosling said: “We know that one of the things that frustrates patients and their families is when people working health and social care don’t talk to one another enough.

“This one team approach is about joining up those services and making sure the patient at the heart of their care.”

Justine Hillier, matron on the hospital’s medical admissions unit said: “It’s not a good experience - for patients or for us - to have people waiting in hospital who don’t need to be there. Bringing all the right services together in one place is helping us get our patients to where they most need to be, as quickly as possible.”