Hospital taking patients from Birmingham due to Covid pressures

SOUTHMEAD Hospital is taking critically ill Covid patients from as far away as Birmingham because of “extreme” pressures on intensive care units (ICUs) in other parts of the country.

The ICU at the hospital in north Bristol is taking about five Covidpositive patients from other regions each week, and that number is expected to rise, according to a hospital chief.

North Bristol NHS Trust’s chief operating officer, Karen Brown, said it had been a “challenge” to provide safe staffing levels within the ICU and wider hospital, as Southmead hit a peak of more than 200 patients. ICU capacity is planned on a regional and national level, Ms Brown told members of South Gloucestershire Council’s health scrutiny committee on January 27.

Hospitals in the south are expected to submit ‘surge’ plans to NHS England and NHS Improvement to support London, Kent and the Midlands.

Southmead Hospital has expanded its ICU bed numbers from 46 to 55 and accepted ICU patients from “as far as Swindon, out to Yeovil and beyond”, Ms Brown said.

“We’ve had patients transferred to us from Kent and also Birmingham as well.”

Seven ICU patients arrived in 10 days and that number is expected to rise to one a day, according to Ms Brown’s presentation.

The hospital has also taken dozens of non-ICU patients, with and without Covid, from the BRI and Weston General Hospital. But people who live in the local NHS area should not worry that there won’t be an ICU bed for them if they get sick, Ms Brown said.

“We recognise our absolute requirements to our local population,” she added. “It’s a clinical decision on a daily basis about who we receive into the organisation from those regional places. It’s part of our surge planning process... and we play our part in that to provide a local service for our local residents without question.”

Having said that, Ms Brown acknowledged that Southmead Hospital has had to cancel most elective operations, other than those for cancer patients and “urgent life and limb”, to free up hospital beds for Covid-19 patients.

The hospital is still carrying out acute operations and neurosurgical work, and providing emergency and trauma services, she said.

“We believe we have been at our peak between January 19 and beyond, where we’ve now got over 200 patients who have been Covidpositive,” Ms Brown said.