Summer in the city
Our hospital teams are already planning for seasonal pressures next winter but the long hot summer is posing its own stresses and strains.
The number of people attending A&E is up 4.5% on this time last year and our A&E departments are experiencing surges after each heatwave.
We continue to see seven out of ten patients within the four-hour national standard, but under our own improvement plans we should be nearer eight out of ten by now.
The urgent treatment centres at The Royal London and Newham, which are run for us by local GPs, do not have the capacity to see enough walk-in patients quickly, and this is in turn affects the overall performance of each hospital.
Both hospitals are spending a lot of time at the highest level of operational pressure, with high numbers of patients waiting for inpatient beds and delays in discharging those who have completed treatment.
The Royal London experienced unexpectedly high demand for trauma, stroke and neurosciences services. Newham, whose A&E manages twice the number of patients for which it was built, hosted an Urgent and Emergency Care summit to agree a recovery plan.
Overcrowding also affects the Whipps Cross A&E. All our hospitals are managing significant numbers of patients who either have specialist mental health needs or require non-medical care in community settings.
We continue to work with our North East London partners on the Care Closer to Home programme which should reduce demand in hospitals in due course, but we have yet to see interventions making an immediate impact.
Looking ahead, our three hospitals will share almost £6m in capital investment over the next two years to develop dedicated facilities for mental health patients in A&E departments. Each is allocated £1.9m as part of a national programme to help people in crisis and ease overcrowding in A&E departments, which also includes extra community-based facilities as well.
Early plans are being developed at Newham with Whipps Cross and The Royal London following later.
Shane DeGaris, group chief executive, said:
“This investment will make a real difference for people across east London and help ensure people in crisis get the right care, in the right place, when they need it most.”