NHS PLEA: STAY AWAY FROM A&E!
Crisis as staff are recalled from holidays to deal with patient surge and bosses urge the ill to stay at home
PATIENTS have been told to stay away from hospitals across Scotland as soaring pressures send the NHS into a winter crisis.
Wards are struggling to cope after an influx of patients over the festive period, while doctors warn that flu cases are at the highest level in years.
yesterday, NHS Lanarkshire became the latest board to issue a warning telling patients to avoid A&E unless they need ‘urgent and immediately necessary treatment’.
It has been forced to bring off-duty staff in from holiday to cope with a ‘high demand of very sick patients’.
Meanwhile, NHS 24, Scotland’s out-of-hours hotline, was inundated with more than 90,000 calls during the eight-day festive shutdown.
Last night, opposition politicians voiced anger over the SNP’s NHS winter planning.
A number of health boards – including NHS
Lothian, NHS Grampian, NHS Tayside, NHS Fife, NHS Dumfries and Galloway and NHS Forth Valley – have urged patients only to visit A&E if it is strictly necessary, and to instead use services such as pharmacies or minor injury units. They have also asked people who are feeling unwell to avoid visiting patients in hospital.
Scotland’s NHS is attempting to recover from an eight-day festive period shutdown during which many services, including GP surgeries, closed.
Dr Daniel Beckett of the Society of Acute Medicine said a rise in flu cases and falls during a recent cold snap meant wards had struggled to discharge patients in time for the shutdown. Admissions outstripped discharges, putting hospitals under greater pressure.
He added: ‘We have not really had a significant flu outbreak for many years and clinicians in acute medical units are seeing flu cases in numbers they have not seen for many years.’
An update giving the latest number of flu cases in Scotland is set to be published this week. However, some hospitals were able to provide their own figures. Raigmore in Inverness is currently dealing with 21 flu cases, while NHS Forth Valley confirmed it had treated 80 patients for the illness in the past two weeks.
NHS Lanarkshire has urged those who have been unwell in the past 48 hours to avoid visiting patients in hospital.
The board’s medical director, Dr Iain Wallace, said: ‘If you don’t feel well, I don’t want you to come in to hospital to see relatives. In terms of attending A&E, before you do that I want you to contact NHS Inform or NHS 24.’
A spokesman for NHS Lanarkshire said: ‘We’re experiencing a high demand of very sick patients... which is why we have contacted off-duty staff to come in. We are seeing long waits at A&E as a result of the high volume of patients attending.’
Last week, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde issued a similar warning, while NHS Highland told visitors to avoid bringing children into wards and said pregnant women should also stay away because of the flu risk.
There are growing concerns that so-called Australian flu, a potentially deadly strain, could cause the worst winter flu season in many years. NHS 24 took more than 46,000 calls over the four-day Hogmanay break and more than 45,000 in the four days over Christmas. Many callers had flu symptoms, coughs and stomach bugs.
NHS Tayside said an influx of flu patients forced it to close wards to new admissions last month. A spokesman added: ‘There’s been a lot of pressure in hospitals.’
NHS Ayrshire and Arran said its A&E departments had experienced ‘high demand for care’, while NHS Fife said staff had dealt with a ‘marked increase’ in the number of patients with flu symptoms.
Chris Moulton, of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: ‘It’s a pretty much ubiquitous situation all over the country of long waits in the emergency departments, patients in the corridors and a shortage of beds. There’s a lot more flu around and we’re expecting more to come.’
Scottish Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘The crisis in A&E wards across Scotland is a direct result of SNP mismanagement and its failure to get a grip of the problems facing our NHS.
‘There can be no more excuses – this must be the last winter where we see doctors, nurses and patients suffering due to a government that has taken its eye off the ball.’
Health Secretary Shona Robison said an extra investment of £22.4million would help boards to deal with the ‘sustained and exceptional level of complex demand’.
She added: ‘Demand on the NHS always increases in winter and especially at New Year, and the system is under sustained pressure from very high levels of flulike illnesses and a huge increase in ice-related injuries compared with the same period last year.’
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