Managing emergency pressures
It might be the height of summer yet more people are seeking urgent and emergency care from our hospitals this year than ever before.
Over the last six months, our A&E departments have seen a six per cent increase in attendance over the same period last year, with an all-time record 48,693 visitors in March. That’s more than 1,600 people a day, confirming our position as one of the biggest provider s of emergency care in the country.
In May we had the second highest volume of any trust in England, and the highest in London, and managed to see 67% per cent of them within four hours, against the national standard to achieve 78% by March of next year .
The pressure is not easing, either, as overall attendance in May and June exceeded those in January and February, traditionally the most challenged winter months . Despite this, through the tremendous efforts of our hard-pressed staff, we saw 2,669 more patients in under four hours during May than we did in April .
Underpinning this improvement is our success in streaming less serious cases to the Urgent Treatment Centres (UTC) at each hospital , which are each now seeing over 90% of walk-in patients within four hours.
We are also making good use of our new Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) facilities, treating a record 4,000 people this way last month, a 9% increase on last year. We are further expanding the SDEC footprint with extended opening hours.
Unfortunately, capacity constraints mean we are still having to treat some patients in corridors rather than on wards. As our Board heard this week we are getting increasing numbers of complaints about this from members of the public.
Hospital teams are pulling out all the stops to manage the unprecedented demand, with daily huddles in each emergency department (ED) and weekly calls with system partners whose help we need, for example with treating mental health patients .
Whipps Cross is halfway through the process of recruiting 15 substantive consultants in ED to replace temporary posts . The Royal London is working closely with its UTC provider to increase clinical capacity . The new Intensive Care Unit at Newham is helping a department that was designed for half the number of A&E patients it now receives every day .
Natalie Acheson, group director of urgent and emergency care, said:
“ Our emergency department staff deserve the highest praise for their efforts to keep patients safe round the clock. Despite the difficult circumstances we are managing to see, treat and discharge almost seven out of ten attendees within the national 4-hour standard.”