53 extra beds at Shropshire hospitals
More than 50 beds will be made available at Shropshire’s two main hospitals to cope with thousands of extra patients expected this winter, health bosses have revealed.
An extra 28 beds will be made available at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford and 25 at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in Shrewsbury under contingency plans announced yesterday.
The hospitals are expecting 2,000 extra emergency patients this year, a board meeting of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust heard yesterday.
The meeting was told that both hospitals are handling six per cent more patients so far this year than last year.
It comes after the trust last year announced plans to axe 115 beds at the hospitals by March 2013 following advice from two firms of consultants.
So far 82 beds have been cut. But now emergency admissions have risen so extra beds are being made available until March as a contingency.
They will be available on two wards, known as escalation wards, in Ward 12 at the PRH and Ward 22E at the RSH, where a further eight beds could be used if needed.
Peter Herring, trust chief executive, said: “We’ve experienced a six per cent increase in activity.
“We’re very clear that we need to put back into place some designated escalation capacity for the winter. This is a short-term plan.”
He added that numbers of nurses have been increased, and budget plans have been revised in preparation for opening the extra beds.
Mr Herring said the situation had arisen as almost a quarter of patients were staying in hospital longer.
He said nearly a quarter of SaTH patients had not been discharged within 14 days of admission.
He said the trust was working with other NHS bodies and social care providers to discharge patients in a ‘swift and speedy’ way once they were ready to leave hospital.
Members backed the contingency plan.
Comments for: "53 extra beds at Shropshire hospitals"
twiggo
On first reading this sounds like excellent news until you realise that the reason they will need "extra" beds this winter is because they have greatly reduced the number of beds as part of the ongoing reorganisation of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals. It suggests that they are in a muddle if they are having to reinstate beds so soon after getting rid of them.
Colin Dodd.
Have I got this right? To accommodate "thousands" of patients, 50 beds are being added. My basic maths knowledge tells me these figures do not balance.
Doesn't solve the issue...
It's a bit of a false economy. Why add more beds when they can't cope efficiently with the bed base they already have? Add more beds just for patients to fill them up quickly and back to square one.
If activity keeps rising year on year and year on year they are unable to cope why not look at changing their way of practice to more efficient ways?
Just seems like a very knee-jerk reaction.
Roger
Totally inadequate response. They could fill these beds today.
As long as the government presses poverty through austerity on the elderly they will be ending up in hospital in greater numbers. The Government and Council have cut support services and the Care in the Community review has become the “elephant in the room". The recovering patients will not be discharged because there is nowhere suitable to support them in the community. Bed Blocking is inevitable.
The hospitals should be there for intensive and specialist treatment and the day to day support should be in the community in a graded response from community hospitals down to meals on wheels with visitors.
This solution is the most expensive solution of all. Austerity is supposed to spending government money more effectively, not wasting critical hospital beds to replace meals on wheels.
Laura Tomlinson
My Nan has just been admitted onto this Ward 12. A place, it seems, made up just to put some extra beds in the hospital.
It was an appalling mish-mash of unorganised chaos. No one would tell my Nan what the ward was for - well they wouldn't would they. What could they say? You're in the 'extra bed' ward!
She was refused a paracetamol for her headache after a blood transfusion. She was told to wait till morning to ask a different nurse.
She was surrounded by people crying as they also didn't know where or why they were there and has come home depressed and distressed by the whole experience!
If this is what happens when they cram in more beds I wish they hadn't bothered!