5:00pm Tuesday 16th March 2010
By James Connell
A HEALTH watchdog representative has hit out at a hospital trust after a friend of hers was forced to wait on a trolley in A&E for four hours at a Worcestershire hospital.
The concerns were raised by county councillor June Griffiths at a meeting of the health overview and scrutiny committee (HOSC) at County Hall in Worcester.
Health chiefs said while that was not acceptable, patients staying longer in hospital over winter had put pressure on bed space.
During the meeting, which was about the response of the NHS in Worcestershire to winter pressures, Coun Griffiths, vice chairman of Bromsgrove District Council, said a friend of hers had had to wait four hours on a trolley in A&E at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, which is managed by Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.
Coun Griffiths did not want to refer to dates or the specific nature of the medical condition to protect the identity of the patient but said the patient had been admitted to the Alexandra this winter, was taken off intravenous antibiotics, sent home and then re-admitted where he waited four hours on a trolley before being given a bed.
She said: “I feel angry for anyone kept on a trolley for four hours. This is third world treatment. The maximum wait at A&E is supposed to be four hours but they don’t say what the minimum is. Let’s be proactive and say we can beat that. We can reduce the wait to three hours.”
At the moment the target, set by Government, is that 98 per cent of emergency patients must be seen, treated, discharged or transferred within four hours of admission.
At the last board meeting figures showed the trust was on target to hit this for the year although managed to treat only 93.55 per cent (10,771 out of 11,514 patients) within four hours in January, the latest published figure.
Phil Milligan, chief operating officer for Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “It is not acceptable in any way for patients to be on a trolley for four hours. The vast majority of patients want to be in and out in a short time, including those who have minor injuries.”
Mr Milligan said patients staying longer in hospital over the winter had put extra pressure on beds which had risen for the first time in a number of years .
He said: “There’s a lot of media coverage about the future state of NHS finances and whether the pressure on the public purse will affect frontline services. If we see the same pressure as this year we cannot afford to close beds.”
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