Chief's reassurance over Eye Infirmary beds cut
NHS chiefs have attempted to reassure the public over plans to reduce the number of beds at a rebuilt Sunderland Eye Infirmary from 22 to eight.
The city centre’s former Vaux Brewery site has been earmarked for the new £36million eye hospital, to replaceitscurrentageingbasein Queen Alexandra Road.
But while the need for the move has been largely accepted,fearshavebeenraisedover the implications of a cut to capacityforpatientswhohaveto stay overnight.
“Although we are looking at a bed reduction compared to the current eye infirmary, where we have 22 beds at the infirmary, we never use those 22beds,”saidPeterSutton,executive director of planning and business development at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust.
“Our average occupancy is probablymorelikefourorfive beds,intermsoftheactualusage, because the vast majority ofproceduresweundertakeat the Eye Infirmary are undertaken on a day case basis.
“One of the things we’re looking at to put in place is what we call day surgery admission and increasing our capacity there.”
Suttonwasspeakingatthis last week’s meeting of Sunderland City Council’s (SCC) Health and Wellbeing ScrutinyCommittee,whichwasheld byvideolinkandbroadcastvia YouTube.
A report for the panel revealed a loss of 14 inpatient beds has been recommended
forthenewsite,althoughfinal plansarestilltobeconfirmed.
Proposals have instead suggestedan‘ambulatorycare area’ with space for up to six patients who could be treated without full admission to a ward, as well as 10 ‘recovery rooms’ for patients attending for day procedures.
Sutton also insisted that as the facility would be for ‘single speciality use’ it would not be impacted by bed pressures seeninotherhospitalscaused bythecoronaviruspandemic.
Some on the panel were
unconvinced, however, such asCllrMartinHaswell,whoalso raised concerns about future city centre parking costs for patients.
He said: “I’m really concerned about this discussion of bed reduction.
"It sounds as if these beds, as they can’t be redeployed, would be mothballed.
“This is very much being sold as a lift and drop and sold as an improvement.
"But actually a cut in bed sounds to me like a cut in service.”