A prominent Fife doctor has paid tribute to staff who have been working flat out in Fife’s hospitals in recent weeks and again highlighted the impact delayed discharges are having on the health system.
With patients stuck in hospital and beds at a premium, NHS Fife medical director Dr Gordon Birnie praised staff across Fife’s hospital network who had been working in “very, very difficult circumstances,” but still managing to preserve patient safety.
That said, Dr Birnie admitted delayed discharges were having an adverse impact on the quality of care patients have received and hopes the issue can be resolved sooner rather than later.
“The staff have done an excellent job and they’ve been faced over the last couple of months with major issues around the weather, norovirus and on top of that they’ve had over 100 patients in delay in our beds that’s more than three wards’ worth,” he explained.
“Unfortunately that does impact on the quality of care patients are receiving. Patients in delay are in the wrong place and they are not receiving the right level of care we’re needlessly exposing these patients to the risks around healthcare associated infections (HAIs).
“We’ve had to board patients out to other wards and that carries risk as well, both in terms of the confusion it causes in our system and also to the control of infection arrangements we have as well.”
Dr Birnie went on to highlight the fact that a lack of beds has forced a number of operations to be cancelled, with the rescheduling likely to give the NHS another headache.
“We’ve had to reprioritise and reprioritise again and when you do that mistakes can be made and operations can be delayed beyond what we would like,” he added.
The medical director also touched on the subject of accident and emergency waiting times, which will undoubtedly be affected by the shortage of beds.
Indeed, The Courier learned of one patient who had to endure a 23-hour wait in A&E at Dunfermline’s Queen Margaret Hospital recently well over the four-hour standard sought by the Scottish Government.
“We’re failing to meet our A&E targets because of the difficulty of finding beds. That puts a lot of strain on A&E and it’s led to difficulties in maintaining the quality of provision,” he said.
His comments were echoed by NHS Fife nursing director Caroline Inwood, who added, “Our staff are doing the absolute best they can.
“Patients are having operations cancelled, sometimes three or four times, and they are getting as far as the ward because we’re trying our best to get these people in and get their operations carried out,” she said.
“The service we’re giving them isn’t good just now because we don’t have the capacity.”
Photo used under Creative Commons licence courtesy of Flickr user boliston.