Rising pressure for local care services Challenge for hospitals and care teams‘unprecedented’
Health chiefs have admitted they are battling to deal with unprecedented capacity and staffing pressures.
Over the last few weeks, with Covid-19 cases rising across Scotland, local health and care services having been responding to rising numbers of seriously ill people with complex needs, both in the community and in local hospitals.
And as of this week, around 100 patients are in local hospitals waiting for a care home place or a package of care at home.
Cathie Cowan, Chief Executive, NHS Forth Valley, said: “We have and continue to experience unprecedented pressures on our services, however, despite this, our staff continue to show great professionalism, commitment, and compassion for local patients and each other.
“Likewise, we are also seeing increasing demand for care in our communities along with significant staffing challenges.”
A shortage of social care staff was last week blamed, in part, on Brexit.
Chief of the Clacks and Stirling Health and Social Care Partnership, Annemargaret Black told the Clackmannanshire and Stirling Integration Joint Board that social care staff providers are “losing staff to other industries particularly since Brexit happened, social care staff are going into hospitality and supermarkets”.
The pressure on care home services means that even when patients are well enough to leave hospital, they can often face delays in returning home or moving to a local care home.
There has been an increase in A&E admissions with many who attend are also said to be “very unwell” and requiring to be admitted to hospital - putting additional pressure on inpatient capacity.
NHS Forth Valley say that health and care workers across the board are doing “everything possible to meet demand”.
To address the pressures, a new strategic structure has been established, led by Ms Cowan, bringing together senior clinical and service leads from across local health and social care services.
Decisions and additional investment to date has included:
• Opening more than 50 additional inpatient beds and treatment areas (including additional beds in Forth Valley Royal Hospital, local community hospitals and social care facilities).
• Recruiting more than 100 nurses, including 80 for FVRH, to fill vacancies and invest in a number of new nursing posts.
• Expanding Day Surgery to enable more operations to be carried out
•Opening additional rehabilitation beds at the Bellfield Centre within Stirling Health and Care Village
• Providing additional medical staff cover in the evening and at weekends.
• Expanding the Hospital @ Home team to enable them to support more local people in their own homes.
• Commissioning additional care home beds to help reduce delays for patients are ready to leave hospital but require to be transferred to a care home for ongoing support
• Recruiting more than 80 additional healthcare support workers to support local care at home services which are also experiencing severe service pressures due to Covid-19.
Annemargaret Black said said: “We have been undertaking extensive work to maximise our available health and social care capacity to help manage increasing demand and respond to a rising number of patients with complex needs across Clackmannanshire and Stirling.
“This includes supporting people to be at home... and opening additional rehabilitation beds at the Bellfield Centre within Stirling Health and Care Village.
“This additional capacity will support people to return home and efforts are being made to ensure the needs of those who are well enough to be cared for in the community are met.”