‘Winter war rooms’ will tackle hospital pressures

NHS “traffic control centres” have gone live across the South West and the rest of England with the aim of getting patients into beds more quickly and managing demand.

The “winter war rooms” will use data to respond to pressures on the health system, with staff able to divert ambulances away from full hospitals to ones with more capacity.

It comes amid concerns over waiting times to admit patients to hospital, with ambulances forced to queue for hours and social care shortages slowing the discharge of those able to leave wards.

Yesterday, the BBC reported that more than 10,000 ambulances a week are caught in queues of at least an hour outside accident and emergency units in England. The total, the highest since records began, in 2010, means one in eight crews faced delays on this scale by mid-November. Paramedics have warned the problems are causing patients severe harm. One family told BBC News an 85-year-old woman with a broken hip had waited 40 hours before a hospital admission in the Westcountry. She waited an “agonising” 14 hours for the ambulance to arrive and then 26 in the ambulance outside hospital. When finally admitted, to the Royal Cornwall Hospital, which has apologised for her care, she had surgery, the BBC reported yesterday.

The idea behind patient “traffic control” is that the 42 centres, which were first announced as part of a wider winter plan in October, will be able to respond quickly to challenges as they emerge. Data, including A&E performance and waiting times, staffing levels, ambulance response times and bed occupancy, will all be examined by staff, who will include senior medics. The integrated care centres will run seven days a week and will be fully manned during daytime hours, with on call arrangements overnight. Of the 42 integrated care boards set up this year, seven are located in the South West, including one in both Devon and Cornwall.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said: “These locally delivered control centres are just one part of our wideranging preparations for winter but will play a vital role in the sharing and use of vital information to drive smarter decision-making by local NHS teams.

“We have teams across England working around the clock monitoring and responding to information and insights from frontline services to help spread resources

“With recent data hitting home the significant pressure staff are facing – with 10 times the flu cases in hospital than we saw going into winter last year and thousands of beds taken up by patients medically fit for discharge – it has never been more important for the NHS to introduce these important and innovative planning measures ahead of what is likely to be one of our most challenging winters yet.”

Miriam Deakin, director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, said: “New ‘control centres’ could help ease some of the pressure on urgent and emergency care services at this critical time. Urgent action is also still needed to tackle workforce shortages, staff exhaustion and burnout, and the inability to free up capacity by discharging medically fit patients in a safe and timely way.”

‘Urgent action is also still needed to tackle workforce shortages’ MIRIAM DEAKIN