A&E patients are being admitted to beds in corridors at an east London hospital trust that is struggling with the longest waits in England.
Staff at Queen’s Hospital in Romford and King George Hospital in Goodmayes are fighting a “significant increase” in older patients with respiratory problems such as Covid and flu.
In an update last week (January 5), the chief executive of Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHRUT), which runs Queen’s and King George, apologised for “distressing environments” where a lack of space has led to admitted patients waiting on beds in corridors.
Matthew Trainer told a public board meeting of the trust: “We’ve seen a more significant increase in older people with Covid and needing treatment for flu and that has made it harder to manage space within the emergency department because they need to be given their own space.
“There have been specific problems like we’ve had patients cared for in corridors that we’ve never seen before on our site or at other sites.
“It’s been a very challenging period; this week we’ve moved to a different command-and-control approach to manage the bed base.”
Mr Trainer added that he apologises to those receiving treatment in corridors. “It’s not good for them, and not how we’d want our family to be treated.”
Worst in the country
The most recent statistics for BHRUT show it continues to be the worst-performing NHS hospital trust in the country for the number of urgent patients who are dealt with within four hours of arrival.
Only 29 per cent of patients are admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours – the lowest score out of the 202 English hospital trusts that run A&E departments.
The statistics also show that King George is performing even worse than sister hospital Queen’s, with a score of only 22pc.
Figures for November, the most recent available, show the trust logged 100 serious incidents of patients waiting on trolleys an extended period of time, known as “twelve-hour trolley breaches”.
Reasons
East London’s hospitals are seeing more patients than they did before the pandemic.
Mr Trainer believes the demands on BHRUT’s emergency department are caused by “structural” issues such as the size of the medical workforce, limited social care beds and difficulty seeing a doctor in the community.
When contacted by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), neither NHS England nor the Department for Health and Social Care would comment directly on BHRUT’s poor performance.
However, a spokesperson for NHS England referred to a press release about the health service making progress on long waits for treatment “despite winter pressures surge”.
A spokesperson for NHS North East London (NHS NEL), a regional commissioning body formed in July last year, said they acknowledged the “unprecedented pressures” faced by the trust and health service as a whole.
They added: “We are working closely with colleagues at the trust and local system partners to improve urgent and emergency care services across Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge, including at our urgent treatment centres.”
However, NHS NEL did not respond when asked for examples of how it is supporting BHRUT.
Mental health
In recent months Mr Trainer has taken aim at the impact a shortage of specialist mental health beds in east London is having on BHRUT’s A&Es. He said that in October and November last year, ten emergency department cubicles were used “round the clock” by mental health patients.
He added: “Children’s mental health remains a real problem and the availability of beds across the country is dire. We’ve seen children sent hundreds of miles away from London in recent months.”
The two trusts responsible for mental health care in east London, North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT) and East London Foundation Trust (ELFT) have been approached for comment.
A spokesperson for NHS England referred the LDRS to a press release from early December, which claimed the NHS is investing £10million to support mental health trusts this winter.
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