Plans ready for winter pressures, say NHS bosses

NHS bosses are preparing action to stop ambulances queuing outside hospitals as winter pressures kick in.

A number of measures could be implemented to ease the strain on Birmingham and Black Country emergency departments to free up beds, including extra GP deployments in hospitals and help with discharging patients.

On Monday, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust declared a critical incident after 269 inpatients, including nine in a critical condition, arrived at A&E.

The week before, a third of all West Midlands ambulances were stuck outside hospitals waiting to admit patients at some point.

Cases included ambulances responding to "category two" incidents where patients who had suffered chest pain or strokes were left waiting for more than 30 minutes.

Things were expected to get worse in the coming weeks, bosses said, as winter sets in and resident doctors plan industrial action from 17 December.

One option would be to launch winter plans earlier than normal, including the use of potential capacity at the Midland Metropolitan Hospital in Smethwick, according to David Melbourne, chief executive of NHS Birmingham and Solihull and NHS Black Country Integrated Care Board (ICB).

They could also deploy GPs at hospital "front doors" to help with demand, or the ICB could look into ways of providing support to discharged patients.

"Last Monday, a third of all the West Midlands ambulances were sitting outside A&E departments somewhere across the region," he said.

"Therefore, those crews were not able to get back out.

"And how long [people] waited in an ambulance for strokes had gone up to over 31 minutes.

"That's still better than the East Midlands but still not good enough."

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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