NEW measures have been put in place at Warrington & Halton Hospitals to improve patient flow and free up beds for urgent patients, as data from The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) revealed, delayed discharges put patients in danger.
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) called for action after weekly performance figures for England released at the end of February showed an increase in patients remaining in hospital despite being medically fit to leave – as well as considerable time being lost due to ambulance handover delays.
The College warns that these trends can only be bad for patients.
The data covering 16 to 22 February showed nationally that:
o Bed occupancy was at 93.8%.
o On average each day last week, 19,107 patients had been in hospital for 21 days or more. Additionally, 13,820 patients remained in hospital despite being medically fit for discharge. This has sharply risen by 569 from last week.
o There were 92,488 ambulance handovers in week 15, a decrease of 1,313 from the previous week. The total time lost to handover delays was 43,509 hours, 6,597 hours less than the previous week and equivalent to approximately five years.
RCEM President, Dr Ian Higginson, said: “The data shows that our hospitals are still full, so our departments are full, meaning that we can’t get patients out of ambulances.
“The increase in delayed discharges is important to note since it is a key cause of lack of beds in hospitals, and leads to increased waits for patients in our EDs. This is associated with increased death rates in patients, as well as causing overcrowding and making it very difficult for our staff to give patients the vital help they need.
“Full hospitals, full EDs, and delays offloading ambulances are all part of the same picture, which can’t be solved through isolated interventions alone. For instance, whilst we are pleased to see that ambulance services are managing to improve their response times, this cannot be achieved by simply dropping patients off in already full departments if there is no meaningful improvement in flow. It just improves one statistic at the expense of another, without solving the underlying problem.
“What we need all year round is direct action to help our members deliver the highest quality care. We need ambulance services and hospitals to work collaboratively together to ensure that there are beds for patients, so that EDs have room for patients brought in by ambulance, and so that patients can be dropped off safely.
“All parts of the hospital system must work together to make sure discharges are as effective as possible, so that beds are available for those who need them most.”
Daniel Moore, chief operating officer and deputy chief executive at Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals, said: “Our staff work exceptionally hard to ensure the safe delivery of care and discharge our patients as soon as they are medically fit to go home.
“We continue to experience high demand for our services and recognise that ongoing challenges across the whole health and care system create pressure on our capacity and can lead to some patients staying in hospital longer than they need to.
“We are committed to working together with our partners to ensure people receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time and have introduced several improvement initiatives to improve patient flow and free up beds for urgent patients arriving in our Emergency Department.
“We will continue to work together to support people to get home safely, sooner.”
