Hospital services provided by NHS Dumfries and Galloway are falling short of the usual standard that patients expect, according to the chief executive of the health board.
Jeff Ace has spoken of problems such as two patients having to share a single room because they have hit maximum capacity in hospital settings and asked for understanding from the public.
Mr Ace said he appreciates the frustration of members of the public over the post-Covid recovery of health services in the region but warned that verbal and physical abuse directed at staff would not be tolerated.
He gave a service update this week as bed blocking cases increase locally meaning wards operating at near or full capacity.
Mr Ace said: “The service we’re providing at the moment is the very best we can do but it’s not the service they’re used to from Dumfries and Galloway.
“It’s not the service we want to provide. We’ve had to, on occasion, have two patients in one single room for example because we’ve run out of capacity.
“Now we can make that safe but it’s not the sort of patient experience that we’re used to in Dumfries and Galloway. We’ve always had an extremely effective service here, extremely high quality, I’m so proud of what our staff can do but at the moment we are struggling to come up to that mark.”
The latest remarks come as the health board prepares for a busy winter period and with officials needing to slash £20 million from its budget to reach a break-even position.
Mr Ace admitted he as “not sure” he could reassure the public about the level of service they’d receive if the necessary cuts are made and warned of significant reductions in baseline staffing and service offerings.
