A leading Nottingham A&E nurse has laid bare the 'relentless' challenges currently facing the NHS, claiming it has been the worst she has seen in 32 years. Lou Davis, a sister in Queen's Medical Centre's emergency department, said the problems staff and patients are contending with are "far, far worse" than she has ever seen in her career.
NHS services across the UK have been experiencing an especially high level of demand in recent weeks. Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH), and the wider Nottinghamshire healthcare system, have been no different as they remain in a 'critical incident'.
NUH said patients should expect long waits at its A&E department, which is dealing with the devastating brunt of the pressure. "At the minute it's awful, it's the worst I've seen it in 32 years and I can't see any end to it," 54-year-old Ms Davis told Nottinghamshire Live.
Read more: 24 Hours in A&E nurse Lou Davis details the moment patient arrived with 'grimmest' injury
"We are staffed for the number of patients that we should have and we're stretching that by three, four or five times the number of patients we should have in the department, which is tough. What you see when you walk through the door and the people sitting in chairs - that's the tip of the iceberg. We've got many more patients on trolleys who actually do need to be going into hospital but we don't have the beds available."
Between 60 and 70 patients are in the ED at QMC waiting to be admitted to a ward. Delays are being caused as 200 fit-for-discharge patients wait to be discharged, with 300 patients with flu and Covid being treated on the wards.
Ms Davis, who appeared in the first episode of the new series of 24 Hours in A&E, said it breaks her heart to see patients waiting on trolleys. "I feel great sadness that our patients are waiting for these inordinately long periods of time. We want them in a bed as soon as possible and we can't do that at the moment," she said.
"I don't know whether we'll ever be able to do that again because when you look at the country as a whole, we're all in this position. Our isolation unit in ED is at capacity 24 hours a day now. It breaks my heart, we shouldn't have anybody on a trolley for the length of time that we do. It is heartbreaking."
She said the work the department was doing was "almost like firefighting", adding: "At the minute the service is creaking at the seams and we are struggling. I will walk 30,000 steps in a shift. You don't stop, you don't go to the loo.
"I worked a shift last week and I started at 6am and the first time I went to the loo was quarter past three in the afternoon. I think what people don't see when they're sitting in the waiting room is the fact that one patient can consume, because of their need and their critical need, much more resources than you would imagine."
Michelle Rhodes, chief nurse at NUH, said staff and services are "under the most strain that I have ever known". The daily demand for beds from very poorly people is creating long waits to be seen in our emergency department and long waits to be admitted to one of our wards. These patients are often waiting on corridors in an overcrowded department.
“We will always do our best to keep patients safe and we are working with our NHS and local authority partners to put in place measures to ensure that people who need hospital and emergency care can get treatment quickly and to identify and utilise any additional capacity to allow us to discharge patients and free up our beds.
“The response from everyone at our hospitals to the exceptional pressures we are facing has been immense - we have opened more beds at short notice, deployed staff from elsewhere in the hospital to support colleagues in ED, ensured that patients waiting for beds have access to food and water and we are using hospital at home and remote monitoring services to discharge people as soon as they are medically fit to free up beds.
"Before coming to hospital, please remember that urgent care centres, pharmacies and NHS111 are all here to help when you need them. Our emergency department will continue to see the sickest patients first and if you do need to come to hospital, please expect a long wait to be seen. Finally, please do not visit patients in our hospitals if you have an illness - and when you do come to our hospitals, please wear a mask in clinical areas, as directed.”
Meanwhile, officials at Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust - which runs King's Mill, Newark and Mansfield Community Hospitals - have issued a fresh plea for the public’s help to support their loved ones to leave hospital as soon as they are ready.
The trust has opened 49 more beds this week alone to take the total number of inpatient beds now open across the trust to 773 – the most ever opened by the trust at any one time. NHS data released on Thursday (January 5) has revealed there were 111 patients occupying inpatient beds across the trust’s sites on an average day in December, despite those patients having been medically fit to leave hospital for more than 24 hours.
The total number of inpatient beds covers the three aforementioned hospitals, as well as the 19 beds opened by the trust at a former care home to support patients who are preparing to leave hospital.
Phil Bolton, the Chief Nurse for Sherwood Forest Hospitals, said: “Making every hospital bed count will be absolutely key for our NHS this winter. We all have a part to play in supporting our NHS and one of the single most important things we’re asking our local communities to do is to work with our staff to help support their loved ones to leave hospital as soon as they have received the vital care they need.
“We need the public’s help now more than ever, which could be as simple as ensuring that our loved ones are supported to travel home or have food in the fridge as soon as they are ready to leave hospital.”
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