Hospitals go on high alert
Wednesday 11th November 2009, 2:27PM GMT.
Shropshire’s two main hospitals are at their highest level of alert because of a huge rise in emergency cases caused by early outbreaks of winter illnesses among the elderly.
The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust which runs the Royal Shrewsbury and Telford’s Princess Royal, is operating at “Escalation Level Four”.
Officials say that so far the hospitals are managing to cope and no patients have had to be transferred to other centres outside of Shropshire.
But pressure could further increase if swine flu tightens its grip on the county.
The difficulties caused by Escalation Level Four are highlighted in the new Shropshire health service winter plan which was presented yesterday to the board of the NHS Telford and Wrekin Primary Care Trust.
The alert status is determined by a number of operational issues.
These include casualty departments failing to meet the four-hour waiting time target throughout the day, no resuscitation capacity likely to be available for two to four hours, situations where 12 or more people are left on trolleys because no bed is available, patients are unable to be transferred to surgical wards, urgent planned operations having to be cancelled and ambulances having to wait 45 to 60 minutes to discharge patients into A&E.
As a result extra beds might have to be opened in waiting areas, discharge lounges and day surgical units.
Hospital trust spokesman Adrian Osborne said there were already plans to open an additional 36 permanent beds at the Princess Royal in January to help ease pressure.
He said the majority of patients needing emergency treatment were elderly people with “multiple complex conditions” like breathing problems.
Mr Osborne said the whole of the NHS was facing a “degree of uncertainty” around swine flu.
It was not clear what impact this would have on the hospitals.
However, Mr Osborne said there had been a very good take-up of the swine flu vaccine among frontline trust staff with more than 1,000 having been vaccinated.
By Health Correspondent Dave Morris
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It’s just as well we’ve still got two hospitals then isn’t it? Although I suppose some little bean counter will put forward the argument that it looks better having one hospital barely coping rather than two…..
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I’m with you Rob, We need two Hospitals!
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The official line is that the hospitals are coping, why doesnt someone go to grass roots level and ask the patients,
My day surgery operation was cancelled yesterday at 2,30pm, it was scheduled to go ahead today, patients arnt even being given 24 hours notice of vital operations being cancelled, and when you ask for another date you are told umpteen excuses and non of them are credible, I actually went to the hospital this morning to get a rescheduled operation date to be told that:
1, the lady dealing with appointments is on leave for three weeks so you cant get another date
2, Day surgery for the long term is being used for medical overflow beds which due to the nature of tests and treatment means them beds are tied up longer than normal surgical beds. so for the long term no orthopaedic operation slots are being released.
all of this equals upset delayed patients, who ultimatly have no answers to questions or that they lie to patients to get rid of them,
A reporter needs to contact the hospital and directly ask how many operations have been cancelled due to the hospital not meeting the demands placed upon it, I was told today that over the last two weeks 40 day surgery operations have been cancelled and non rescheduled, and ward 11 operations are now starting to be cancelled as the spill over effect is no extending to ward 11.
The answer given was all non life saving procedures have been put on hold, my answer was that although my operation is not life saving it is life changing, im still waiting for an appology and rescheduled operation time.I appreciate people are sick and need attention but on the same note staff need to resolve this and stop lying to patients, God help us all if PRH is down graded, two hospitals cannot cope with demand now
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Pretty much settles the need for two hospitals argument. Let’s hope the powers that be take note
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This has made me change my views entirely. If these hospitals aren’t able to provide the services that they’re supposed to, they should be closed down in the same way as the government closes “failing” schools.
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Perhaps if people took responsibility for their health, our hospitals would have the time and capacity to support people who really needed the services, rather than having to waste resources on people who cause their own problems and then demand the NHS sort things out for them. How much is wasted on people who’ve had accidents (or worse) because they’re drunk? Or who’ve eaten their way to obesity & now their heart etc can’t cope? Or abused their bodies with drugs? or smoked & ended up with the diseases leading from that?? Yes, I know it’s “their choice”, but they expect the NHS to ‘fix’ them. How many millions is spent on these people when other have to go without, or have ops cancelled. What a waste!
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