Braced for a perfect storm
All areas: Hospital trust prepares for a tough winter
Hospital bosses are expecting to be stretched to the limit during the winter due to a ‘perfect storm’ of rising coronavirus and flu cases.
The Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Wexham Park and Heatherwood hospitals, told its annual members meeting how it is braced for a ‘really difficult challenge’ over the coming months.
The meeting on Wednesday, November 3 heard how the trust has been one of the hardest hit by coronavirus in the UK and has treated more than 4,500 COVID-19 patients since the start of the pandemic.
Chairman Pradip Patel said: “I have no doubt that the next few months are going to be really difficult because we’ve almost got this perfect storm coming together of winter and all it will bring with it such as flu, and other respiratory infections.
“There’s clearly an increasing number of COVID
cases which we are already seeing and unfortunately that’s likely to get worse.
“Keeping all of our other normal services going is going to stretch us to our limits and then some.”
The trust’s chief of nursing and midwifery, Lorna Wilkinson, told the meeting how the second surge in coronavirus cases last winter saw 70 per cent of the hospital’s general bed base occupied by patients with COVID-19.
The hospital trust had to triple its number of intensive care unit beds and redeploy 500 staff to alternative roles within the hospital to cope with demand, Ms Wilkinson added.
Figures show waiting lists have risen to 43,000 patients at the hospital trust.
Medical director Dr Tim Ho, told the meeting that, following the disruption of COVID-19, the trust restored its cancer performance to the national standard by December last year.
Trusts are tasked with ensuring patients begin treatment for cancer within 62 days of an urgent GP referral for suspected cancer.
Dr Ho said 92 per cent of patients were being treated within this timeframe by December 2020 but this had since been impacted by the second coronavirus wave.
Chief executive Neil Dardis said: “The last year has been unprecedented and probably the most challenging the NHS has ever encountered.
“I’m in awe of the response of our teams at Frimley Health, when our communities needed us most, our teams rose to that challenge and faced challenges they’ve never faced before.”