Wexham Park Hospital now part of a southern Hospital trust called “Frimley health” is very concerned for the amount of patients arriving in their A&E department. The Hospital is located north-west of Slough, in Buckinghamshire and can receive high numbers of casualties at times. Even though it has 3,200 staff member on average, the A&E department has a ratio of doctors and nurses to patients which is heavily unbalanced. Can staff of A&E be expected to take care of all the patients arriving at their doors?
The winter months can normally see a huge influx of patients compared to the autumn months beforehand. Having a sudden drop in temperature people tend to become more prone to colds and fevers, especially the older generation. With local GP’s becoming increasingly busy people turn to A&E to seek understanding or reassurance of themselves or loved ones around them. When all these people come to one A&E they’re expected to be seen straight away. Even though they are always attended to by a nurse first, the waiting time for doctors tends to increase every few years. This month however we’ve had a particularly hot month (for December); nevertheless this hasn’t stopped people from receiving colds and fevers. Among all the patients, half of which need serious medical attention there are high demand for beds. Having already a large number of elderly patients too fragile to go home, the hospital can find itself having a shortage of beds. Therefore people have to lie on trolleys overnight, which can overcrowd the department that is busy enough already. But there have been procedures put into place to make the A&E department run smoother. A temporary ward is opened in the winter months, which allows more room for patients to be supervised or to wait for a transfer to another wards. Agency staffs are employed on a daily basis to look after the patients so the doctors and nurses can do their duty more effectively and can see multiple people rather than a couple. This month though it has been one of the hottest on average, so it has only needed to be opened once so far. There are still problems though; this is the only A&E in the area that is remotely close to London. With the A&E being shut down in High Wycombe, the closest A&E except London is near Aylesbury (Stoke Mandeville) which is 27 miles away. This leaves serious thoughts to Wexham Park Hospital; if the temperature were to drop, would the A&E department be able to cope with vast amounts people living in the area with nowhere else to go?
