Medical and midwifery staff at UHSM’s Maternity Centre were  joined by Emmerdale and Coronation Street actor Chris Bisson who performed the official ground-breaking for the Trust’s extension to its Maternity Centre.

Chris Bisson returned to the hospital that he was born in to perform the ground-breaking ceremony with little Patrick Vincent Massey-Keyes who was also born here and cared for in the neonatal unit for several months.

Patrick weighed just 1lb 14oz when he was born prematurely at 25 weeks on August 10 2008. Patrick’s Mum Emma explains: "After he was born, Patrick had two operations on his stomach and chest and needed vital regular hospital care for several months. I can't thank the wonderful team here at Wythenshawe Hospital enough for all their kindness and care. It’s wonderful to be able to bring Patrick back here to perform this ceremony."

The ground-breaking ceremony marks the start of work to extend the delivery suite and neonatal unit within UHSM’s Women’s & Maternity Centre, which is currently receiving £20 million upgrade and expansion.  The three-year multi-million pound scheme, which started last year, will provide a new Women’s Ward, a new Midwife-Led Unit, a larger and totally refurbished Neonatal Unit and Delivery Suite, plus more birthing pools and improvements to the antenatal area.

Helen Thompson, Head of Midwifery at UHSM says: “Today’s ground-breaking ceremony marks an important milestone in our three-year scheme to deliver a fantastic new Maternity Centre designed by and for our women and their babies. I am absolutely delighted that Chris and Patrick, who were both born here, have joined us today to perform this ceremony. We showed Chris the new, temporary Delivery Suite which is a fantastic refurbished unit for our mums in labour to use until the extension is completed next year.” 

The three-year refurbishment and expansion is being undertaken by Laing O’Rourke and the architects for the scheme is Gilling Dodd.