Report claims repeated A&E closures did not hit patient care
A report into contingency plans imposed at Fife's two main hospitals earlier this year has suggested the measures did not adversely affect services.
Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy.
- By Craig Smith
- Published in the Courier : 18.09.10
- Published online : 18.09.10 @ 10.17am
Staffing problems forced NHS Fife to repeatedly downgrade the accident and emergency department at Kirkcaldy's Victoria Hospital between May and July, with emergency cases taken to Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline.
The move prompted major concerns about patient care at the time, with the contingency plan being increasingly relied upon over the summer.
While staffing has apparently been sorted out, health chiefs have been assured that the temporary reconfiguration of acute medicine did not cause any significant problems for staff or patients.
In his report to NHS Fife's operational divisional committee, Dr Gordon Birnie, operational division medical director, suggested figures for the number of patients attending both sites showed the contingency plan process had gone smoothly.
"An analysis shows that there were relatively small numbers of patients who had to be moved between sites and that the contingency was operated without significant adverse clinical incidents being reported," he said.
The contingency plan was put into action several times between May and July, with severely ill patients referred to Queen Margaret between 5pm and 8am on a number of days — particularly over weekends.
All 999 calls from east Fife, where the Scottish Ambulance Service considered a patient may require specialist treatment, were immediately transferred to Dunfermline, while self-presenting patients who turned up at the Victoria's A&E department were assessed there and taken to Dunfermline if deemed serious enough.
With the Victoria's A&E department downgraded to a minor injuries unit, the number of attendances at the department were effectively reduced.
Figures presented to health chiefs this week revealed that there was a 25% rise in attendances at the Queen Margaret emergency department when the contingency plan was in place, with the average number of patients attending between 5pm and 8am standing at 63.
That compares to a typical overnight attendance figure of 50 when the measures were not imposed.
Likewise the number of overnight attendances at the Victoria fell by 14%, with the average during the contingency plan period standing at 45 patients compared to the 53 who would be seen normally.
A lack of staff and problems recruiting locum doctors were blamed for the crisis, with managers stating that patients could be put at risk if both casualty units were kept open with insufficient staff.
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