18 A&E patents waited more than 12 hours on trolleys - report

A TOTAL of 18 patients waited for more than 12 hours on trolleys at Royal Derby Hospital’s A&E in one month, it has been revealed.

Derby and Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group papers have revealed another sign of how much pressure the local NHS is facing.

Royal Derby Hospital is facing the level of pressure which it would normally only see in winter in what is supposed to be the period in which NHS services usually experience their quietest period.

Pressure on services includes patients attending with illnesses and ailments they have put off during lockdown periods along with symptoms of other respiratory illnesses – many of which could be dealt with elsewhere, such as through the 111 service.

This pressure on services, while Covid-prevention still heavily restricts capacity, has led directly to eight of the 18 breaches.

Before the pandemic, and especially outside of winter, the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust usually would not have any 12-hour trolley breaches each month.

A hospital trust spokesperson said in July Royal Derby’s A&E “saw an increase in very poorly, non-covid related medical patients, that required longer admissions”.

They confirmed, as detailed in the CCG papers, that five of the 12-hour breaches caused by general medical bed shortages occurred on the same day – July 16.

Meanwhile, the remaining 10 12-hour trolley breaches at the Royal Derby in July were caused by mental health bed shortages.

Derbyshire has a historic shortage of mental health beds and does not have a single intensive care bed for patients – with all those in urgent need having to be transported outside of the county.

This is an historic shortfall which is finally set to change with Government funding towards projects for mental health intensive care units in Derby and Chesterfield.

The hospital trust did not say, when asked, what impact the trolley breaches had on patients who were left stranded for more than half a day.

Sharon Martin, chief operating officer at the trust, said: “We have seen an increase in attendances and admissions at our A&E in Derby throughout July and August, with patient numbers being signifi

cantly higher than what we’d typically expect to see during this period.

“Our staff have continued to work exceptionally hard to manage this demand, but an increase in sicker patients requiring longer admissions has unfortunately affected patient flow within the hospital and led to waits for medical beds.

“As ever, we’d ask the public to help us keep our A&E departments free to prioritise our sickest patients by calling NHS 111 first, for advice on non life-threatening concerns and by also visiting Urgent Treatment Centres, where staff can provide treatment and advice for minor injuries or illnesses.”

Over the winter, when services were heavily scaled back and were in the middle of the second wave of the pandemic, the trust as a whole hit 12 12hour trolley breaches.

July’s 18 breaches at Royal Derby alone represents a significant change from the normal and shows the scale of the strain NHS services are under.

In contrast to the winter, NHS services are all now back up and running – though with Covid preventing capacity from returning to 100 per cent – which means staff are handling more work overall.

They are also aiming to tackle a serious backlog in patient waiting lists – now featuring thousands of people who have waited over a year for surgery.

Health leaders at the hospital trust say pressure on A&E has been particularly demanding, with attendances back at prepandemic levels – but without the capacity to handle it.

They say there were 196 highly urgent (major) cases per day in July and at the children’s emergency department the average number of attendances has shot up to 125 – compared with 94 last July.

July 8 alone saw 163 attendances at the children’s emergency department.