'Exceptionally high' demand for emergency care

Demand at Guernsey's Emergency Department (ED) has been "exceptionally high" with waits of around three hours for patients.

Staff at ED had dealt with 86 "complex cases" during one 24-hour period, Health and Social Care said.

ED Consultant, Dr Mat Dorrian, said: "This January we saw over 2,000 patients, which is 10% up on January the previous year."

Elaine Burgess, director of care delivery, said despite the busy periods, corridor care was not routinely needed in Guernsey.

"All patients continue to be treated in appropriate clinical spaces. Our staff are working tirelessly to see patients as quickly and safely as they can," she said.

Dorrian said the number of people attending ED had been increasing for a number of years.

"It's a trajectory we thought might plateau but it hasn't done," he said.

"There is a demographic element... so we have patients with complex medical problems and we're having more of these sort of elderly patients who we are needing to take care of on a more frequent basis."

Dorrian says Guernsey's ED is designed to treat up to 15,000 people a year, but now sees 25,000 patients.

A new Critical Care Unit was due to reopen in autumn 2024, but has been delayed and may not open before 2027.

Dorrian said the unit will not have much impact on easing the pressures in ED.

"It might help move patients on a bit quicker from the ED, but generally we don't have issues with that moving," he said.

"Keeping the flow of patients through the hospital is key... we need our wards to be able to accept patients and there's lots of factors to that as well which is all impacting on the resource drain for HSC.

"So, its about getting patients out of wards when they are ready to leave and that helps with flow."

Patients have been warned the roll out of the new Electronic Patient Records (EPR) system will also be contributing to longer wait times while the system "beds in".

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