Senior leaders at Nottingham's hospitals say this winter could pose a bigger challenge for health services than the coronavirus pandemic. Rising cases of flu and other viruses alongside issues such as upcoming strikes have combined to create a situation one medical director says will take a "community effort" to get through.
Nottinghamshire Live went to visit staff at the Queen's Medical Centre on Wednesday (December 7) to discuss pressures facing the hospital's staff in the run-up to Christmas and beyond. Mark Simmonds, the Divisional Director for Medicine at the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH), met us outside the QMC's emergency department.
He highlighted the efficient turnover of ambulances at QMC as one of the current positives at the hospital. But this focus adds to capacity pressures inside the hospital itself, leading to situations such as the recent case of a 95-year-old war veteran who spent 26 hours in a QMC corridor whilst waiting for a bed.
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NUH is now sending letters of apology to those patients who are being forced to wait or be treated in hospital corridors. But Dr Simmonds says this situation is preferable to severe ambulance queues outside the QMC.
Dr Simmonds said: "We clearly have challenges in terms of bed space and treating patients in hospital corridors is clearly not what we want to be happening, but what we also don't want is queues of ambulances at the door. What can easily be forgotten is that everything has a knock-on effect and queuing ambulances doesn't just affect us at the hospital, it goes beyond and into community care.
"We are now sending letters of apology to patients who have been in corridors but I would rather have patients waiting at the hospital than somebody sat at home who is frightened and angry because they can't get an ambulance. Two thirds of the patients in our majors department (for patients with severe but not immediately life-threatening conditions) today are people who are simply waiting for a bed after a decision has been made about their care and it's obviously not a situation we want but we are under significant pressures."
Among the many pressures facing Nottinghamshire's health services this winter are upcoming strikes by nurses at its hospitals and staff at the East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS). GMB union members at EMAS will be walking out on two days in December, whilst nurses who are members of the RCN will also walk out on two December dates - with both unions doing so in protest at the Government's pay offer to staff.
But Lisa Kelly, the Chief Operating Officer at NUH, said on the matter of strikes: "Patient safety is absolutely paramount and we have been working across the organisation and closely with union colleagues to ensure that patients face no unnecessary disruptions as a result of strike action. But we absolutely respect the right of staff to strike and we also have a very close working relationship with EMAS and so we will all be working together to understand what we can do to ensure patient safety during these strikes."
Dr Mark Simmonds says that the key message this winter though is for relatives of patients in hospital to think about how they can also look after them at home. He said: "People have long seen the NHS as a right and of course we are blessed to have the NHS and social care system in this country, but we also have to communicate to the public that it comes with responsibilities.
"We're asking people to think about things like ensuring a patient's home is ready for them to go back into and recover, by making sure the heating is on and making sure there is bread and milk in the fridge. We do need a community effort and we saw that during covid, but I fear that the challenge of this winter will be even greater than during the pandemic.
"Coronavirus was one problem that we had to deal with in a relatively short period of time. We now have issues such as people whose operations have been delayed, who are then getting sicker because of those delays, alongside rising cases of flu and other viruses like RSV. We had to take public health measures for covid, but that has suppressed the population's immunity to those other viruses."
Rising waiting lists along with other winter pressures led to the creation of a Downing Street task force on the issue, which met for the first time on Wednesday (December 7). The Health Secretary Steve Barclay said it would look at using "all existing capacity to slash waiting lists."
Dr Mark Simmonds added: "Our main message to people throughout this winter is to think about how they can help us to help them. We often have people in hospital who are simply at the recovery stage where they need good rest and care and that is often best provided at home."
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