Sunday 11 January 2015

Yet another waiting times crisis at St. Peter's Accident and Emergency.


 

This shouldn’t come as a surprise – St. Peter’s Accident and Emergency had to announce a ‘Major Emergency’ on 5th January 2015.

It shouldn’t be a surprise because demand for A and E rises every winter, there is an epdemic of a ‘Killer Flu’ that isn’t stopped by flu injections this year and most importantly….they weren’t keeping to the 4 hour waiting time limit in the summer.

The result? cancelled planned operations which can be catastrophic for the people concerned.

The problem? Too many staff cutbacks which means not enough general wards in winter so people in A and E can't be moved out quickly enough.

Ashford and St Peter's emergency to last at least 24 hours (From Surrey Comet) 

 

 First published Tuesday 6 January 2015  in News  

 by Ellie Cambridge, Reporter

 

Ashford and St Peter’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has struggled to keep up with the demand this week, declaring a major incident that is likely to last for at least the next 24 hours and warning people to stay away from accident and emergency unless it is a real emergency.

 

This comes as data for England was published today by the NHS for the week ending December 28. Christmas is traditionally a busy time for hospitals and this data showed the trust had not met the Government target of seeing 95 per cent of admissions to A&E in four hours, having seen 85.6 per cent in four hours.

 

The number of patients spending between four and 12 hours waiting to be admittedin that week were 88.

 

Country-wide figures showed A&E departments had flagged under huge demand, seeing the worst national performance for 10 years.

 

A spokesman for the trust said: “Declaring a major incident (which we did at the weekend) allows us to mobilise additional staff and take a more targeted approach in how we manage outpatient clinics and planned operations and this is

resulting in an improving situation [today January 6] within our hospitals.”

 

An urgent message issued by the trust yesterday continued today as it faced “unprecedented demand” and needs to prioritise their most urgent patients.

 

In a statement online, it said: “We are currently under severe pressure - please don’t come to A&E unless you are a real emergency.

 

“Non-emergency patients are likely to have an extremely long wait and will be taking staff away from caring for patients who need emergency or lifesaving care.” Some appointments were cancelled on January 5 with patients affected called and informed.

 

No appointments were cancelled today.

 

Chief executive Suzanne Rankin said: “We expect to remain at major incident status for at least the next 24 hours to allow the actions we are taking to take full effect.

 

“I would like to praise and thank colleagues in the hospital who have been working extremely hard on behalf of patients to meet this demand.”

 

Other trusts throughout the country have faced similar difficulties, with hospitals in north Yorkshire, Staffordshire and Gloucestershire struggling to cope with the demand and declaring a major incident.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)


 

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