12-hour waits on hospital trolleys at peak of Covid wave
REPORT REVEALS HOW QMC’S EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT STRUGGLED
SOME patients faced waits of 12 hours on trolleys at Nottingham’s hospitals at the height of the latest coronavirus wave in January.
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH), which runs both the Queen’s Medical Centre and City Hospital, revealed that the pressures from the pandemic had been “exceptionally challenging” at the beginning of the year.
The country was forced into its third lockdown on January 5 due to soaring cases, hospitalisations and deaths.
NUH said admissions due to the virus had accelerated over Christmas, with nurses in the emergency department at QMC telling the Post at the time how it had been the most challenging in more than two decades.
More than 700 beds were occupied by Covid patients across Nottinghamshire and even by the end of January, medical experts said deaths would continue to rise for another month, with almost 100 reported each week.
The situation, particularly in critical care at the QMC, has now become less serious after three months in lockdown and the continued rollout of the vaccine.
Reflecting on the first two of months of 2021, the trust’s chief executive, Tracy Taylor, revealed how much of an impact coronavirus had on its services.
In a board report, she said: “The pressure from the coronavirus pandemic has gradually eased during February following the third wave peak at the end of January.
“The impact of the second and third waves on our clinical services, staff and capacity has been widespread and coupled with strong non-elective demand has resulted in the past month being exceptionally challenging operationally.
“Covid-19 pressure on our critical care did ease in February. However, our critical care units have remained in surge with circa 160% of baseline capacity open. This has a direct impact on theatre availability (as theatres have been used as surge locations for critical care and staff have been redeployed).
“Regional support helped to transfer patients out of our critical care units in order to decompress our facilities and balance the pressure on units across the region.
“Despite our best efforts there have been occasions where we have struggled to provide timely emergency access in the way in which we aspire.
“The flow challenges have impacted on our ambulance handover performance and in a number of patients unfortunately experiencing 12-hour trolley waits in our Emergency Department (ED) in February.
“System flow has been a challenge in February with ongoing issues in maintaining prompt discharge into community services.”
The trust said the number of long-wait elective patients (awaiting surgery but not a medical emergency) increased from zero before the pandemic to almost 3,500 at the end of February.
It emphasised operations for these patients would take place when the trust has the “right blend” of critical care, theatre and ward beds available with enough staff for each area.
Access to these is “slowly improving”, the trust said, and will continue to do as pressures from coronavirus continue to ease.
Speaking of cancer referrals, Ms Taylor added: “We are generally maintaining good access to cancer two-week wait referrals (which have been back at pre-pandemic levels since last summer) although we did fail the two-week wait standard in January 2021 (latest reported period) due to an increase in referral demand in our Breast service driven by a national campaign.”
“The service was quick to increase capacity. However, the demand coupled with patient choice over the Christmas period meant some patients were seen out of target; the service is now backdating within 14 days.”
Because of the intense pressures of the year past, the chief executive also revealed that all staff members would be given a “well-being day” for their birthdays, to be taken between April 1 and March 2022, “recognising their contribution”.
“Despite the challenges, uncertainty and pressure, Team NUH continues to do an exceptional job to keep as many services in place as feasible and deliver as timely care as possible for our patients with the highest clinical need,” the chief executive added.
“As the current pressures ease and our hospitals are able to deescalate, we are focusing heavily on restoration and recovery of our clinical services which in turn will support the recovery of our underperforming operational performance standards.”