CORRIDOR CARE TO SOLVE DELAYS RULED OUT AT THE ROYAL STOKE
Trust bosses vow to avoid return to patients on trolleys
HOSPITAL bosses have vowed not to bring back corridor waits to solve ambulance handover delays.
Emergency ambulances dropping off patients at the Royal Stoke University Hospital were held up for an hour or more 618 times in September, due to A&E struggling to cope with demand.
Board members at University Hospitals of North Midlands, which runs the Royal Stoke, were told about the steps being taken to resolve the issue, including an emergency department recruitment drive and the opening of more hospital beds.
But UHNM chief executive Tracy Bullock said she would not accept the reintroduction of corridor care as part of the solution.
Pictures of patients on trolleys in corridors at the Royal Stoke and elsewhere were symbolic of an NHS close to breaking point in previous years, but the practice has since been eliminated.
Ms Bullock said: “Historically we’ve been an organisation that’s had significant corridor waits, but we haven’t had any now for over two years. I firmly believe that we should not do anything that reintroduces corridor care at UHNM.
“I know we’ll all be under significant pressure in terms of resolving the ambulance delays, and we absolutely need to be doing everything that we possibly can. But I think we should be saying that shouldn’t include corridor care.”
Professor Andrew Hassell, associate non-executive director, said: “We do have ambulances waiting with patients at A&E. I think we should not feel that the elimination of corridor waits has been entirely dependent on that – it hasn’t.
“It’s been very clear that the elimination of corridor waits has been because of a lot of other strategies taken within the trust.”
According to national targets, patients should be admitted into hospitals within 15 minutes of their ambulance arriving. But at UHNM this was achieved less than 30 per cent of the time during September.
UHNM chief operating officer Paul Bytheway said: “Part of the work we’re doing is on reducing the occupancy and attendances within the emergency departments, and that, of course, will have the effect of creating more space to receive ambulances.
“From a system point of view, the additional beds that are coming online, the GP out-ofhours and 111 are all about supporting ambulance hold reduction.”