Forced to wait outside A&E
HUNDREDS OF PATIENTS HAD TO STAY OUTSIDE HOSPITALS
Political Editor HUNDREDS of stricken North East patients were forced to wait outside over-crowded hospitals in ambulances over the Christmas period, NHS figures have revealed.
One hospital trust, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, said there were 380 cases of patients forced to wait to be admitted in the seven days from December 25 to December 31.
They included 253 occasions when patients had to wait between 30 minutes and 60 minutes to be handed over to the hospital, and 127 cases of patients waiting more than an hour.
The trust runs a number of hospitals including Darlington Memorial Hospital, University Hospital of North Durham and Bishop Auckland Hospital.
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which runs a number of hospitals including Wansbeck General Hospital and North Tyneside General Hospital, recorded 123 cases of patients waiting between 30 minutes and an hour, and 34 cases of patients forced to wait more than an hour.
Long ambulance waits have been seen as one symptom of the crisis facing the NHS this winter.
Health Minister Philip Dunne was summoned to the House of Commons on Monday to answer an urgent question from Labour Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth about the state of the NHS. And Prime Minister Theresa May admitted over the weekend that it had been necessary to cancel thousands of operations.
She told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show: “You mentioned operations being postponed – that was part of the plan. Of course we want to ensure that those operations can be reinstated as soon as possible, but it’s about making sure that those who most urgently need care are able to get that treatment when they need it.”
Sedgefield Labour MP Phil Wilson said: “People have been predicting for months now that there was going to be a winter crisis in the NHS, and that is what has happened. What we need to see is a joined-up health system, both in primary care and social care, as one of the problems is that you have people in accident and emergency beds who could be discharged from hospital if the social care was available for them in the community.”
Health bosses have admitted the NHS faces a crisis. Chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing Janet Davies last week said delayed admissions and cancelled operations showed “that almost every day last week, NHS hospitals in England were at bursting point”.