‘Not enough hospital beds’ (From Borehamwood Times)

‘Not enough hospital beds’

7:47am Friday 21st April 2006

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Improving waiting times for beds at Barnet Hospital is the number one priority of the trust's emergency care director, he said this week.

Simon Weldon, director of operations for emergency care for Barnet and Chase Farm NHS Trust, admitted that the hospital's bed management system needed to be improved to avoid patients waiting more than four hours for a bed.

"Making efficiencies is our biggest challenge and I will be doing everything I can to improve the service," he said.

Questions were raised about the shortage of hospital beds this week after an Elstree pensioner who had suffered a heart attack was kept on a trolley for a day and a half.

Phil Rose, 93, from Allum Lane, was admitted into Barnet Hospital on March 29, after having a heart attack in his home.

He was rushed to the hospital's accident and emergency department and left on a trolley for a day and a half, before being transferred to a bed.

"It was chaos there," he said. "There were people everywhere, on the floor, on trolleys, standing up, in beds. Scores of people kept coming into A&E, but there just weren't enough beds for everyone.

"It reminded me of the olden days with the casualties from the war being taken into overcrowded hospitals.

"It was an impossible situation. The place is about half the actual size it should be. They've got to stop sending all the ambulances into there, they just can't cope, and I understand why.

"The staff were amazing and I can't praise them enough. It's not their fault. The hospital just doesn't have enough beds for the amount of people."

Mr Rose, a former councillor in the area, added: "I think that the great dream of the NHS has gone."

The current national standard is that 98 per cent of patients should be seen, treated, discharged or admitted within four hours of attending A & E departments.

Only 95 per cent of the trust's patients are currently seen within four hours. Once the decision is made to admit a patient the national standard is to find the patient a bed within 12 hours.

A spokesperson for the trust could not comment on the individual case of Mr Rose, but said: "Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals at times sees an unusually high increase in the number of people attending the two Accident and Emergency Departments.

"This leads to the departments experiencing great pressures at these times and although all is done to minimise the waiting times people have, on occasion there is a delay for some patients.

"We apologise to anyone who suffers a delay at these busier times and the trust is continually working to improve the service, to ensure those attending A&E at a busier time can still move through the system quickly."

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