Here is the text of a message sent to GPs in Southampton yesterday:
Dear Colleagues,
I have been asked to inform you urgently that Southampton University Hopital Trust is currently on ‘Black Alert’ with Ambulances queuing outside A/E and the Ambulance Service [SCAST] indicating that there is a 1.5 hour wait for even urgent requests for ambulances to be dealt with.
Clearly in this difficult situation we would request wherever possible that if measures can be taken by you to avoid hospital admission or A/E attendance for patients we would be most grateful.
I am conscious that communications of this nature are often deemed unhelpful, but I hope that you will take this circumstance into consideration, in consultation with patients and carers, in informing your clinical decisions this afternoon
Many thanks
5 comments:
...and this at a time of the year when there isn't a major 'flu epidemic, there isn't an outbreak of norovirus, there hasn't been a major multivehicle RTA, jus a normal day in the NHS...
And if someone's having a heart attack?
And where has all the £billions of tax money gone?
Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland?
This is what England gets for voting Labour.
Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge issues 'black'(completely full, even the trolleys) and 'red'(nearly completely full) alerts, regularly and frequently throughout the year. They ask us not to send patients in to hospital unless they really need to go, well, yes, that is why we send them. This situation has been going on for years.
From the press...
32,000 hospital beds have been lost.
The Government insisted that the fall in hospital beds was a sign of a healthy NHS.
A Health Department spokesman said: "General and acute bed numbers are decreasing because hospitals are dealing with patients more efficiently.
"The NHS now performs more day cases, and people with long-term conditions are supported in their own homes.
"The experts all agree that this is the best way to deliver healthcare to patients.
"Bed occupancy rates were at 84 per cent last year, which proves that the NHS has the right supply to meet demand."
So there's no problem.
I'm trying to build the definitive list of government failures over the last ten years at "The Error Log." This is one of them.
All suggestions welcome.
Max
http://theerrorlog.blogspot.com
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