Patients wait 20 hours at A&E at Royal Sussex County Hospital

9:50am Thursday 7th March 2013 in News By Emily Walker, Chief Reporter

Patients wait 20 hours at A&E at Royal Sussex County Hospital Patients wait 20 hours at A&E at Royal Sussex County Hospital

Patients were left waiting more than 20 hours because of major delays still hitting an accident and emergency department.

Ambulances were queuing up outside the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton yesterday because of the huge demand on services. Hospital sources said services across Sussex were “really, really busy at the moment”.

The ambulance service said that the delays were “above what we would normally expect”.

One woman contacted The Argus yesterday afternoon to say: “My dad has been in A&E for 20 hours. He went in on Tuesday tea-time and is still there.

“There are people everywhere. It’s awful. It looks like a war zone.

“There are so many ambulances queuing to get in that they are blocking the car park.”

The hospital was yesterday still on a “code purple alert” meaning non urgent operations and staff leave were still cancelled.

No single reason

A spokesman for Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals which runs the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath said there was no single reason for the backlog and it was thought to be down to a number of factors, making the problem more difficult to resolve.

In a statement, the hospital said: “From April 1 to December 31 2012 almost 3,000 more people attended our emergency departments than for the same period in the previous year.

“Of course when patients need to be admitted from the emergency department we strive to do this as quickly as possible, but when the hospital is as busy as it has been in recent months, the reality is that there is not always a bed immediately available for them to be admitted into.

“Patients who we have to hold in the emergency department until they can be admitted are made as comfortable as possible and regularly monitored.

“We are acutely aware this is happening too often and we are working extremely hard to create more capacity within the hospital and the community which will in turn allow us to admit every patient as soon as it is clinically appropriate to do so.”

A spokesman for South East Coast Ambulance Ser- vice (SECamb) said: “Both the hospital and ourselves are very, very busy and today we have had a number of ambulances waiting considerably longer at A&E than we would like to.”

Have you suffered delays at the Royal Sussex County Hospital? Call The Argus newsroom on 01273 544519.

Comments(23)

ICantThinkOfAName says...
10:09am Thu 7 Mar 13

The policy in recent years under both the Coalition and New Labour to close A & E departmentsis now having its adverse results.

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ThinkBrighton says...
10:33am Thu 7 Mar 13

The NHS are the biggest employer in the UK, but it is more than obvious that they are not employing the people to do the job of healing. Too many admin and managers but not enough nurses.
The RSCH Maternity unit has an abundance of doctors and admin staff but not enough Midwives (having to move them from the Princess Royal Hospital and visaversa). The management team leave a lot to be desired in there decision making and seem to close ranks on job cuts to protect themselves.
They should use a little common sense and employ medical staff not pen pushers and the the overall waiting times might get shorter

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AGT999 says...
10:44am Thu 7 Mar 13

More and more emergency patients are being taken from Mid Sussex to Brighton where they have to queue instead of being treated at a perfectly good A and E at Haywrds Heath.

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charlie smirke says...
11:03am Thu 7 Mar 13

AGT999 wrote:
More and more emergency patients are being taken from Mid Sussex to Brighton where they have to queue instead of being treated at a perfectly good A and E at Haywrds Heath.
That's weird, I wonder why they are doing that?

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whereisthe...? says...
11:10am Thu 7 Mar 13

Who was this "spokesman" and why couldnt he be named??

Sounds more like Argus YET AGAIN burying fact that Coalition cuts responsible.


Closing other nearby departments and hospitals, lowering wages and sacking staff...hmmm, nooo, none of that would have ANY effect.... (signed, your local Tory rag the Argus)

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Tailgaters Anonymous says...
11:25am Thu 7 Mar 13

I am not a great fan of The Argus but I fail to see what is wrong with the way this report is written.
I agree with the contributor who cites too many pen-pushers and too few nursing/medical staff.
Given the amount of money that has been pumped into the (un)Health Service in the past decade I am astounded that so many crises are emerging.
As a qualified pen-pusher I doubt whether the profit incentive and rational cost control can ever be matched in the present muddled NHS arrangements across Britain.

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Valerie Paynter says...
11:33am Thu 7 Mar 13

Overpopulate the area, Centralise, centralise, centralise, so you have to serve the entire county beyond the overpopulated immediate area, then change the ambulance service contract and hey, presto! Code purple.

Get used to it or change the PLANNED-IN trajectory.

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whereisthe...? says...
11:48am Thu 7 Mar 13

ARGUS not allowing posts on its suck up article today on Tory MP Mike Weatherley


HE says in it "Squatters are middle-class, society-hating, political extremists, who want a dysfunctional medieval wasteland, where an ENGLISH MAN's CASTLE(!) no longer his home."


QUARTER of ALL TORY MP's are LANDLORDS!


'Coincidence'? He outlawed legal squatting = many dying. He's suing website that says so, has 'contacted police'


Tory Argus faithfully prints this hateful cr*p, and 'coincidentally' allows no posting replies!


The kicker is, in the SAME ARTICLE the police say "He hasn't contacted us about suing anyone!"

Spread this and stop this nasty little man!!


http://www.theargus.
co.uk/news/10269294.
Anti_squatting_MP_to
_report_web_claim/

Report this post »

redwing says...
12:04pm Thu 7 Mar 13

In 8 months then they've seen a rise of about an 'extra' 13 patients a day. It doesn't sound a massive number, but if it's having such an impact management must have some idea why. A vague "it was thought to be down to a number of factors, making the problem more difficult to resolve" seems a lame response to the question of why this is happening. It makes for sloppy reporting, Argus, letting them get away with that explanation.
It would be good if some of the NHS workers came on here and spilt the beans.

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Hove Ex-Pat says...
12:48pm Thu 7 Mar 13

charlie smirke wrote:
AGT999 wrote: More and more emergency patients are being taken from Mid Sussex to Brighton where they have to queue instead of being treated at a perfectly good A and E at Haywrds Heath.
That's weird, I wonder why they are doing that?
South East Coast Ambulance in Surrey, formally Surrey Ambulance service, are now conveying more & more people to hospitals outside Surrey, mainly St Georges in Tooting South London, or Kings in Camberwell.
This very week a story of problems coping there with 999 cases has appeared in the local press there.
Secam are not only having to drive past two or three Surrey hospitals on the way to South London, but when they get there they spend ages "off the run" waiting at A&E. This is putting an unfair amount of pressure on these crews.
This is a national problem now, but it is not being dealt with.

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getThisCoalitionOut says...
12:53pm Thu 7 Mar 13

This is being deliberately done by the unelected coalitition to make everyone think the NHS is failing and then we'll all accept their real plan - to privatise it all ; the reason they're all doing this - because the majority of them have financial interests in private health care companies.

They're lining their own pockets yet again.

Sign the e-petition calling for a general election now - we have to get this lot out before they do anymore damage.

There's also another e-petition calling for cameron and osborne to resign - sign them both.

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Goldenwight says...
12:54pm Thu 7 Mar 13

There are any number of reasons why a person could be in an A&E department for 20 hours such as lengthy treatment, observation, or awaiting a bed elsewhere in the hospital. None of these suggest that the A&E department itself is at fault.

What 'The Argus' SHOULD have done was to investigate how long people were waiting for assessment and treatment.

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Plantpot says...
2:17pm Thu 7 Mar 13

ThinkBrighton wrote:
The NHS are the biggest employer in the UK, but it is more than obvious that they are not employing the people to do the job of healing. Too many admin and managers but not enough nurses.
The RSCH Maternity unit has an abundance of doctors and admin staff but not enough Midwives (having to move them from the Princess Royal Hospital and visaversa). The management team leave a lot to be desired in there decision making and seem to close ranks on job cuts to protect themselves.
They should use a little common sense and employ medical staff not pen pushers and the the overall waiting times might get shorter
The World Health Organisation rates places like France and Italy a long way ahead of the UK in delivering healthcare. Both those countries have c. 30% less nurses per 1000 than we do.

The issue is one of how it's organised, and the fact that root and branch reform isn't politically possible,l only tinkering around the edges is done. As an example, a recent survey showed only 2% of people thought the NHS needed serious reform, and only 30% thought it needed minor reform, the rest thought it was OK. This despite us ranking fairly poorly against other EU countries.

Report this post »

Plantpot says...
2:19pm Thu 7 Mar 13

whereisthe...? wrote:
ARGUS not allowing posts on its suck up article today on Tory MP Mike Weatherley


HE says in it "Squatters are middle-class, society-hating, political extremists, who want a dysfunctional medieval wasteland, where an ENGLISH MAN's CASTLE(!) no longer his home."


QUARTER of ALL TORY MP's are LANDLORDS!


'Coincidence'? He outlawed legal squatting = many dying. He's suing website that says so, has 'contacted police'


Tory Argus faithfully prints this hateful cr*p, and 'coincidentally' allows no posting replies!


The kicker is, in the SAME ARTICLE the police say "He hasn't contacted us about suing anyone!"

Spread this and stop this nasty little man!!


http://www.theargus.

co.uk/news/10269294.

Anti_squatting_MP_to

_report_web_claim/
I think you'll find the vast majority are in favour of outlawing squatting.

Report this post »

Corn Hill says...
2:23pm Thu 7 Mar 13

Too many 'ordinary' people stick their heads in the sand as they're 'all right Jack'.
They'll worry more about Rooney,Katie Price, Corrie or X_Factor.
At the moment maybe they are ok but sooner or later this governments dragnet will collect them up too, be it through job loses, evictions, cr4ppy wars that no one wants (bar the weapons manufacturers, mining corps & business men -shares are up haha) or 24hr waits in A&E for them or their loved ones.

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Maxwell's Ghost says...
3:55pm Thu 7 Mar 13

Valerie is right. There are also other factors.
My missus is a nurse and she and many of her friends worked in A&E for 15 years or more.
Here is what they often told me: People arrive in A&E because they are tourists and don't have a doctor in the UK and the NHS code is to treat no matter who arrives and attempt to claim back costs later, many people arrive in A&E because they cannot get a weekend doctors' appointment, many people are not registered with GPs, including thousands of students each year who don't register, B&H is a tourist resort with major transport hubs and an airport around it, so more sick people arrive, a huge number of young people with two unis and other colleges, partying and ending up in A&E with alcohol related injuries and alcohol induced coma/sickness.
My missus said she got sick of babysitting drunk teenagers and went into nursing to nurse genuinely ill people so left.
She also said that A&E was popular as it issued medicines for free when the pharmacy was open so people would go to hospital to see a doctor rather than their own doctors' surgery which would issue a prescription which had to be paid for. I'm not sure if that's still the case. She said they had to issue notice in the unit she worked in that only one member of a family would be seen at a time because whole families were turning up to be seen with conditions which should be seen at a GP practice because they knew they could get free prescriptions.
I've been in A&E twice and the care was great but sadly there were some dreadful, nasty, foul mouthed people making the lives of the staff unbearable who slag off the NHS who really should be shoved out without treatment.

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CllrSteve says...
7:25pm Thu 7 Mar 13

I was in the A & E Department at the County Hospital in Brighton yesterday, with a family member brought in after an RTA and experienced first hand the awful situation that staff found themselves in. The paramedics, nurses and medics were brilliant but were all burdened with lack of available beds and the problems associated with closure of other facilities. The majority of the cases at the time I was there, were elderly patients and it was explained by staff that the increase in our longevity has not been properly planned for by previous administrations. There were patients crammed into the corridors, with the cubicles all full and others even in the car park being assessed. I commented that Florence Nightingale would turn in her grave, if she could see the way that patients were squeezed together like sardines. I was told that it was a situation that was becoming evermore frequent. Because of the queues, the hard-working paramedics and ambulance staff had to wait hours with their charges, before being released to care for others in the community, in need of their care. I can only give my thanks to the medical staff at the hospital for their unwavering devotion to the job in hand. They never lost their cool and stuck to their tasks. They constantly apologies to patients and relatives for a situation they were not responsible for. Something needs to be done to ease this burden. This was the situation on a Wednesday afternoon. It wasn't a Friday or Saturday night, or during a major incident. Give the staff the tools and the facilities to do what they do brilliantly.

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jesss2012 says...
9:06pm Thu 7 Mar 13

I got bitten by a dog yesterday and phoned my doctor for tetanus..they told me to go to A+E. I knew they were at overload so phoned Brighton medical center..was told they can't dress wound if I'm a B+H resident and told me to go to A+E. Absolutely ridiculous waste of A+E staff time and to their credit I was dealt with within half hr. No wonder they so busy if all other medical professionals send everyone there!!

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evon says...
7:54am Fri 8 Mar 13

Nothing really changed at this hospital as I remember sitting there for over 9 hours with my son who was then 8 his now 31. It's the idiots who run this hospital you only have to LOOK at the mess the hospital is in, building another department in every spare space in the area. They should sell the site and build another up to date hospital on the outskirts of the town with a free bus service. Then when they've done that stop free treatment for non National Insurance payee's. - my rant for a Friday morning

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ThinkBrighton says...
11:09am Fri 8 Mar 13

Plantpots comments and also Evans hit the nail right on the head
ITS DOWN TO VERY POOR MANAGEMENT who are so busy looking after their own little empire, to keep their jobs, they miss the larger picture and everybody suffers
I don't think the NHS should be contracted out, but it does need someone with a bit of guts and common sense to kick some butt

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AmboGuy says...
12:45pm Fri 8 Mar 13

The main problem is that people nowadays will call an ambulance for virtually anything. Sometimes they don't really even have anything wrong with them! We live in a culture of not taking responsibility for ourselves (just look at the squatters and you get the picture) and many people's first action if feeling unwell or being slightly injured is to dial 999. I pick up people who've been unwell for a week or so but have done nothing to help themselves at all and haven't even been to their doctors. I'm not talking elderly people here I'm talking about young and fit people in their 20s with the flu or a sore leg etc!

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jjbrighton2013 says...
1:09pm Fri 8 Mar 13

Last time I was there with a genuinely ill relative, the next bay had 4 people use it while we waited for a surgeon. 3 were drink related people with various knocks and cuts all sent away with no treatment but they took up time and someone who gets indigestion sometimes but not today!! Its easy A & E should only be used for genuine emergencies not as a free service for health tourists and not for non emergencies

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Falmer Wizard says...
6:11pm Fri 8 Mar 13

Its a frightening situation,particular
ly if its outside normal GP hours,to arrive at the hospital as an emergency patient yet not receive attention for 20 hours,its only a question of time before someone dies whilst awaiting treatment.

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