A senior doctor working at the new Royal Liverpool Hospital has claimed issues with the new building are "harming patients and the city."
The new Royal finally opened in October after years of delays and problems. It had originally been planned that the new facility would start to welcome patients in 2017 but issues - including the collapse of main contractor Carillion - pushed this back by five years.
The move to the new hospital has coincided with what many believe is the biggest ever crisis in NHS emergency care, with shocking images coming out of hospitals around the country - including the new Royal - showing patients lining corridors and ambulances queuing up.
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But while there is a national crisis in the NHS, fuelled greatly by the ongoing crisis in social care, some staff believe that issues with the new Royal are making things worse. In November, a letter from 31 top medics was sent to hospital bosses suggesting that a move to a facility with fewer beds than its predecessor was "frankly inconceivable without any workable contingency plans."
The old Royal hospital had around 685 beds compared to just 640 in the new site when it opened in October. Since then further beds have been created at Broadgreen Hospital and in the community but the overall number has still not reached the previous total.
Now a senior doctor working at the new hospital has spoken further about the ongoing issues. He told the ECHO: "There are undoubted pluses to the new building, but the lack of bed capacity, which we all predicted, is really harming patients and the city as a whole."
"I was in the ED (Emergency Department) last week reviewing a patient and what I witnessed was truly shocking. I have never felt more upset and disconsolate in more than 32 years working in the NHS."
The doctor's comments follow up from publication of the letter from staff to trust bosses, which was first reported by the Health Service Journal.
The letter states: “The need to utilise the waiting room and X-ray waiting area chairs to house patients awaiting admission is completely unacceptable. Frequently, patients are waiting for over 24 hours in these conditions. We are embarrassed, ashamed and demoralised by the standard of care we are able to provide.
“We are also seriously concerned about the effect the environment is having on all ED staff. Since we have moved into the new building, we are all equally mortified by the steep decline in care standards. We see nursing staff in tears daily."
The medics said the single most important cause of the issues were the "exit block from the Emergency Department", which they accepted is a national problem. But they added: "To be fully aware of this issue and still insist on moving into a hospital with a smaller bed base, seemingly without any workable contingency plans, is frankly inconceivable."
They added: "Despite our protestations, the risk to patient safety created by your failing trust and hospital, is being concentrated on the ED and the patients and staff within it. The patients are receiving unacceptable care in dreadful conditions… We need real solutions, not expressions of sympathy and promises to make positive changes which never materialise.”
Dr Jim Gardner, Chief Medical Officer at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “A&E departments across the country continue to experience significant pressures and I would like to thank our staff, who are working incredibly hard to provide safe care for patients in what are extremely challenging circumstances.
“We are working closely with our local partners in adult and social care, along with patients’ families, to ensure patients who no longer require hospital treatment are discharged safely and in a timely manner, however this remains challenging, which limits the availability of hospital beds for patients coming in through our A&E departments.
“To help support our teams in caring for our sickest patients, local communities can help us by only using A&E when it is an emergency, and using the NHS 111 service to find alternative services if they have less urgent concerns.”
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