The situation at St Mary’s Hospital has improved with a Critical Incident stood down, but it remains serious as pressure continues across all NHS services, the Isle of Wight Trust says.
Juliet Pearce, Director of Nursing, Midwifery and AHPs, has said:
“We would like to thank our partners, the public and our staff for their support. Thanks to everyone’s hard work we are in a position to move away from Critical Incident status but all of our services remain under pressure and elective surgery is still paused.
Article continues below this advertisement “We had to make some difficult decisions to ensure that our patients could remain safe, and our staff were supported which included looking at transferring a small number of patients the mainland. None of these actions are taken lightly and none are without consequence, however, we have to ensure safety is maintained across all areas of the hospital.
“Our Emergency Department is operating at 120% capacity and despite the very best efforts of our staff, people are having to wait to be admitted into a bed.”
Dr Michele Legg, Island GP and Clinical Director at Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board, adds:
“Local health and care services are under sustained pressure at the moment and we expect this to continue as we enter the winter months.
“We continue to work in partnership and are doing everything we can to help tackle these issues.
Article continues below this advertisement “You can help our front-line staff across health and care by using the right service and ensuring your loved ones can leave hospital as soon as they are ready.
“If you need help or advice and it’s not a life-threatening emergency please visit NHS 111 online and you will be directed to the right service for your needs”
If you have loved ones in the hospital that are ready to leave you could help by:
- Checking that the necessary support services, such as carers, are in place
- Collecting loved ones or asking for support from friends and neighbours
- Making sure that they have all necessary medication and dressings
- Checking they have clothes and shoes or whether you need to bring them in
Perhaps Juliet Pearce, Director of Nursing, Midwifery and AHPs, could use this time in between the seemingly inevitable lurch from one crisis to the next to think about measures to PREVENT this from happening in the future?
Lack of beds? Here’s an idea, buy some more beds.
Lack of nurses? Are you actually advertising for more nurses right now?
If the wage bill is a problem, think about cutting back on the number of managers and directors and employ more front line staff e.g. nurses and doctors.
Surely it doesn’t take a Director of Nursing to realise that Autumn and Winter are going to be busy times and to PLAN AHEAD?
(sorry, that was a bit of a rant but I find it incredible that no-one can foresee this and plan for it)
If you look on the NHS website, there are plenty of adverts out for nurses and doctors. More nurses are retiring than there are nurses joining the profession, so a huge number of roles are left unfilled. You’re correct in suggesting that there should be less managerial positions, as evidently those in such positions cannot seem to control these ever reoccurring factors.
As for opening more beds, they have opened all the contingency beds that they have, but can only provide so many beds in the hospital as per staff ratio.
In addition to this, nurses and doctors are leaving the profession because of the stress, ever changing responsibility and lack of pay – which is out of the hospitals control – it’s a government problem.
Maybe if the Tories had planned ahead when they cut nursing bursaries we wouldn’t be in this situation now.
Maybe if they hadn’t cut nurse’s pay in real terms over the last 12 years and introduced working practices that break the bonds between nurses and their patients (in the name of efficiency).
NHS England has a 10% vacancy rate. That means that 1 in 9 current posts are unfilled.
This is not about building wards or advertising for nurses. This is about too many experienced staff leaving the profession because of poor pay and conditions and far too few being trained to replace them.
Get you head out of your Daily Mail, wash that blue rinse out of your hear and open your eyes to what is really going on.
A lot of ostriches with their heads in the sand judging by the downvotes. What Timms is saying is the truth, whether you like it or not.
Downvoting truths you don’t like doesn’t change the fact.
Do not worry islanders we have another critical situation next week
Wait until you visit the new blood clinic, no privacy for patients, breaking every Health and Safety rule in the book. Manager upon manager making crap decisions and the staff are treated like s**t as usual. This is happening all over the only hospital we have. Don’t blame the staff ask to see the manager and complain, oh hang on, the managers have gone into hiding.
The Conservative Government are to blame. This is why so many nurses and doctors are leaving their profession. Working so many long hours for a wage that does not reflect their worth.
Continuous building of more homes on the island and still only 1 hospital. It’s not difficult to see why things are bad up at St Mary’s and sadly, it will only get worse.