Sussex hospital wards closed due to too many patients (From The Argus)
Get involved: Send your news, views, pictures and video by texting SUPIC to 80360 or email us.
Sussex hospital wards closed due to too many patients
11:56am Sunday 30th September 2012 in News By Tim Ridgway, Local government reporter
Hospital wards became so full with patients they had to close their doors to new arrivals.
Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath had so many people on beds all over their buildings they had to ask fellow medical teams for help.
The Argus understands patients had to be taken to Worthing Hospital and St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester to receive treatment.
Bosses at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Royal Sussex and the Princess Royal, declared a state of emergency on Monday after they ran out of beds and space to treat people in the accident and emergency (A&E) and acute (AMU) wards.
Chris Adcock, the trust’s acting chief executive, revealed the situation in a weekly bulletin to staff.
He said the situation had been caused by the hospitals not being able to discharge enough patients.
At the Princess Royal 46 were admitted over the weekend and only 26 were discharged, while in Brighton the number of people in beds reached 60.
Mr Adcock said: “This has been an extremely difficult week and, as ever, the repercussions on the whole hospital of operating in a state of crisis management are serious and far-reaching.
"By Monday morning A&E and AMU were full of adult inpatients and there were patients in the wrong beds all over the hospital.
“This led to us declaring the hospital to be in a state of business continuity. This declaration is designed to trigger a whole raft of urgent and focused behaviours internally and externally.
“It ensures our commissioners, ambulance service and neighbouring hospitals are aware that neither the health system nor the hospital are functioning as they should and that we need additional support and action from them.”
Mr Adcock admitted the trust made “some headway” on Monday and Tuesday but it became “compounded” when it received seven stroke calls before 10.30am, four patients with fractured hips and two trauma calls.
The trust only stood down its state of emergency yesterday – taking a week to recover.
Comments(12)
Morpheus
says...
3:10pm Sun 30 Sep 12
getThisCoalitionOut
says...
3:41pm Sun 30 Sep 12
Sign the petition to get this unelected bunch out on Go Petition that's titled
"Petition to remove the coalition government from power!"
SueDelaney
says...
4:33pm Sun 30 Sep 12
Joshiman
says...
6:00pm Sun 30 Sep 12
octors/dentists.hous
ing etc
There is no doubt ,it is being legally abused.Our politicians havent got the guts to say enough is enough.There are millions of pounds of outstanding hospital bills that will never be paid and will be written off because the majority of NHS tourists get their treatment.
Then disappear and dont pay their bills.These people have got money to travel to the UK.
We should have a simple system, everyone who has a legal National Insurance number should be able to produce it for treatment and use of services.No NI number then get them to pay by credit or debit card.
SmileyD
says...
7:25pm Sun 30 Sep 12
HJarrs
says...
8:35pm Sun 30 Sep 12
Most of the immigrants I meet are hard working and make a big contribution.
The worst abusers of the system are usually born here.
HJarrs
says...
8:38pm Sun 30 Sep 12
lillylou
says...
8:43pm Sun 30 Sep 12
lillylou
says...
8:47pm Sun 30 Sep 12
HJarrs wrote:This is nothing to do with rasism the whole of England and beyond cant all move to Sussex there's no room schools are full,hospitals surgerys even the water is short why don't everyoneove to Wales or Leeds why here there's no more space !!!
I wonder how many of the immigrants complained about above provide valuable work for us all in the NHS?
Most of the immigrants I meet are hard working and make a big contribution.
The worst abusers of the system are usually born here.
SmileyD
says...
8:48pm Sun 30 Sep 12
redwing
says...
9:24am Mon 1 Oct 12
lillylou wrote:The reason for this is uneven and unplanned development i.e. capitalism, and it means business and industry goes wherever it can screw the most profit, regardless of what that overcrowding means for the environment, housing etc here, and the dearth of jobs and services in other regions.
HJarrs wrote:This is nothing to do with rasism the whole of England and beyond cant all move to Sussex there's no room schools are full,hospitals surgerys even the water is short why don't everyoneove to Wales or Leeds why here there's no more space !!!
I wonder how many of the immigrants complained about above provide valuable work for us all in the NHS?
Most of the immigrants I meet are hard working and make a big contribution.
The worst abusers of the system are usually born here.
But the influx you're talking about isn't something that's been happening in the last few years, its been going on for generations. It won't stop until capitalism is overthrown. That's unlikely to happen as long as people can be fooled into thinking immigrants are to blame.
Goldenwight says...
12:10pm Sun 30 Sep 12
The trust only stood down its state of emergency yesterday
So what was it, Argus- a state of "business continuity" or "emergency"? Because "business continuity" to me sounds like "business as usual." Whereas closing hospitals to new admissions sounds more like an emergency measure.
And incidentally, I think you will find that there were slightly more than 60 patients "in beds" in Brighton. Bit of a typo, there?
And this comes in the same week that Worthing hospital announces it will be losing over 20 beds in order to treat more patients.
Have the scriptwriters for "Yes, Prime Minister" got jobs with the NHS trusts?