Don’t bring patients into Telford A&E, ambulance crews told
Paramedics found a screen with a note pinned to it blocking the A&E corridor at Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital advising them to wait in their vehicles until staff were ready.
Now the ambulance service has written to hospital bosses over the delay to patients being taken in on the evening of March 4, describing it is a “dangerous and unacceptable situation”.
In response Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) which runs the hospital said demand was high on that particular day and the team was focussed on “prioritisation”.
An ambulance service staff newsletter stated that of the 84 patients taken in, only 13 were handed over within the NHS target time of 15 minutes, while 16 patients waited for more than an hour before they could enter.
Now Mark Docherty, the ambulance trust's director of clinical commissioning, has written to SaTH chief executive Simon Wright with “strongly worded” concerns.
Mr Docherty stated in the newsletter: “Twenty-three per cent of all our over one-hour patient handover delays across the region were in your two hospitals.
“I am also very concerned about recent events at the PRH site where ambulance crews have been denied access to the emergency department. This creates a dangerous and unacceptable situation for our patients. It also causes harm to those patients we are unable to get to because of these delays.”
Priority
West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman Jamie Arrowsmith said: “We can confirm that in an isolated incident, crews were met with a note at the A&E department at Princess Royal Hospital asking them to keep patients on the back of their ambulances.
“The trust has made contact with the hospital’s chief executive to raise concerns about delays to patient handovers, and the hospital have asked to enter into discussions with the ambulance service in order to ensure any future delays are kept to a minimum.
“West Midlands Ambulance Service continues to work closely with all hospitals in the region to tackle such issues in order to ensure the very best level of patient care possible is achieved.”
SaTH chief operating officer Nigel Lee said: “Improving hospital hand over times is a top priority for us and we have been working hard alongside our colleagues in the wider health and care system to improve our performance in A&E and in discharging patients who no longer need the specialist care that acute hospitals provide.
“Demand on March 4 was significant and the emergency department team were focussing on clinical prioritisation of patients, as is always the case.
"A note was initially put up in the corridor to update ambulance teams, but this is not normal procedure and was not in place for very long.”
