LOCAL hospitals are facing a beds crisis as winter looms.
With the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch and Worcestershire Royal in Worcester ‘already pretty full’ health chiefs say they may need 50 to 70 additional beds ‘or their equivalent in the community’.
Of the £800,000 set aside to deal with any increase in patient numbers, £600,000 has already been spent, with measures including the opening of the 21-bed ‘Evergreen’ ward for non-acute patients in Worcester.
Elsewhere a Wyre Forest GP led unit is to be re-opened to its full capacity of 16 beds while a planned pilot for ten extra beds is planned at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bromsgrove.
Meanwhile members of the doctor-led Redditch and Bromsgrove Clinical Commissioning Group may once again have to resort to the private sector by buying places for their patients.
Caragh Merrick, chair of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, after
emphasising that patient care must come first, told a board meeting: “It is critical we have in place a number of measures which will help us cope and we need to keep our sights set on how this risk develops.”
Non-executive director Bill Tunnicliffe had earlier warned the board: “We have not hit winter yet and our hospitals are already pretty full – there is a danger of a gap in our capacity.”
Chris Tidman, acting chief executive, estimated there were 105 patients in the trust’s hospitals who did not need to be in an acute illness bed, but had nowhere to move to for continued care.
He added that an additional 50-70 beds could be needed ‘or their equivalent in the community’ to cope with winter illnesses.
To cope the trust might have to delay elective surgery to meet demand, but this would lengthen surgical waiting lists.
Members also heard that simply re-opening of wards was difficult due to the nationwide shortage of staff.
Andrew Short, acting chief medical officer said many people were still turning up at Accident and Emergency for non-emergency ailments when they would be better visiting their GP.
