'Hundreds more' people attend A&E each month compared to previous years
by Sam Volpe · ChronicleLiveA&E at the Royal Victoria Infirmary is seeing "hundreds" more patients each month compared to previously years.
City hospital chiefs spoke at a meeting of Newcastle City Council's health and social care scrutiny committee to detail the plans which will see the urgent treatment centre (UTC) on Westgate Road shut permanently and a new facility built adjacent to the emergency department at the city centre hospital.
The hope is that by "co-locating" the services when the new centre opens, fewer people will face long waits to be seen in A&E. At the committee meeting, Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust directors Claire Pinder and Caroline Docking, and the North East and North Cumbria NHS Integrated Care Board's Lynne Paterson explained how they envisage the plan working.
Ms Paterson said: "The proposal is that we [with the trust] work together and it's in line with the ICB's priority of getting people to the right place at the time." She added the hope was having the new facility adjacent to A&E would help to reduce confusion over which service the public should use.
Ms Pinder added: "I think we need to try to remove some confusion by moving to a single front door, so it's your clinical presentation that decides where you go."
The health bosses explained that the closure of the Westgate Road UTC had not seen increases in attendance at the city's other two UTCs - on Molineux Road and Ponteland Road - and while A&E attendances at the RVI had increased, this was seen as part of a national and regional issue.
Asked about how the pressures at A&E compared to previous years, the executives explained that seeing 400 patients through the department a day had, in the past, been seen as incredibly busy - but now this is a regular occurrence.
Ms Pinder continued: "We are finding they [the figures] are going up by a couple of hundred a month, year-on-year. The number of ambulances we see is about 100 to 120 a day - and they do come in bunches."
She said at some times, "we might see 14 or 15 ambulances" arriving at A&E, continuing: "We have had some investment in our medical staffing that has meant we are seeing the patients slightly quicker when they arrive but also that they are fewer patients in the department."
The plans for the UTC at the RVI were among the topics hospital bosses discussed with councillors at a visit to the trust in October - at which the scrutiny committee members were given updates on the trust's progress since it was given a "requires improvement" rating following a damning Care Quality Commission inspection.
During the visit, councillors were given updates including on how watchdog the CQC lifted restrictions which had been imposed on the trust as a result of inspection. City health bosses satisfied the watchdog that sufficient improvements have been made over the course of this year, though the CQC said it would “continue to monitor the trust closely”.
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