The boss of Sherwood Forest NHS Trust says the group has “much work to do” to reduce overcrowding problems that have troubled one of its emergency departments in the past 12 months.
King’s Mill Hospital, between Mansfield and Sutton-in-Ashfield, was subject to “severe” issues at Easter which saw more than double the number of patients it was designed for waiting for treatment.
In response, the trust introduced a “fit to sit” policy in June, where patients who were well enough would be moved from trolleys to chairs in a 19-seater room. But chief operating officer Simon Illingworth said he “totally recognises” the ongoing issue when questioned by a member of the public at the Trust’s AGM on Tuesday, September 16.
The question asked: “Your hospital has struggled with overcrowding multiple times over the last year, even outside of winter pressures. How are you going about preventing this for the future and is a 19-person fit-to-sit room going to prevent that happening again?”
Mr Illingworth, who only joined the trust in July from King’s Lynn’s NHS Trust, said he “totally recognises” that crowding in the department is a problem. He touched on “three areas” to improve that the Trust was looking to address.
He said: “We’ve got capital work to expand the ED footprint to create the extra space in there for the staff which will help.”
The COO also mentioned working with primary care and partner organisations to improve flow. He said: “We’ve done a lot of work over the last year to reduce delayed transfers of care in the organisation, which has come down significantly since February.”
The third area of work was with regards to discharge, explained Mr Illingworth. He said: “We’re working particularly with medicine to look at general improvements in discharge planning.
“We also want to work on getting patients ready and working with family members around discharge planning, really as soon as the patient arrives in hospital, to get them ready to go when they need to go and when they’re clinically ready to do so.
“I think patient experience shows we’re not really good at that and we don’t offer a good experience to patients when they come to be discharged from an organisation. If we can do that work sooner and in a more organised way I think that will improve things and help the flow across the hospital, which will alleviate pressures on ED.”
Mr Illingworth added that there were no plans to reverse the hospital’s policy on offloading patients from ambulances as soon as they arrive at hospital, to free ambulances to attend other emergencies. Other hospital trusts opt to keep patients in ambulances until space indoors becomes free – which can lead to separate problems.
But Mr Illingworth said: “I think it’s absolutely important that we don’t leave people outside and at home without ambulances.
“That’s a conscious decision we take. This does lead to some crowding on some days – but not every day.”
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