FRONTLINE staff are “feeling the strain” as Royal Bournemouth and Poole hospitals continue to face challenges from high occupancy rates, bed blocking and a stretched workforce.

A report to University Hospitals Dorset’s board of directors meeting said the NHS trust remains under pressure.

Paula Shobbrook, acting chief executive at the time of the report, said there was still a gap between the demand for emergency and urgent care and the capacity available at the hospitals.

While Covid patient numbers were much lower than during the peak of the pandemic, this issue was still having an impact on the trust’s work, Ms Shobbrook said.

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According to her report, which was presented to the meeting on May 25, some of the challenges UHD staff faced every day included:

  • More patients being ready to leave with no reason to reside increasing month-on-month, which meant around one-fifth of capacity was not available for new admissions
  • The lack of downstream beds results in delays in ambulance handovers and increased waiting times within emergency departments, although these areas had improved in April
  • The demand for emergency care beds and the reduction in accessible beds reduced the number of hospital beds available for elective (planned) surgery
  • Maintaining additional beds in response to demand required more staff, at a time when there were already gaps in the workforce. This meant the trust had to use more temporary/agency staff

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Ms Shobbrook, who has returned to her role as UHD’s chief nursing officer following the arrival of new chief executive Siobhan Harrington, said: “In light of all the above, all our teams are extremely busy and staff are feeling the strain across all areas.

“The on-going emergency pressures make it hard to recover our elective (planned) work – as noted above - despite all our commitment and best efforts.”

The report said a number of key actions had been agreed that “will make a difference in re-balancing capacity and demand”. This included agreeing three priority areas.

  1. Bi-weekly rapid decompression meetings to target immediate action to improve crowding in the emergency departments through the sites will take place.
  2. An elective recovery programme to focus on opportunities to increase productivity is being developed.
  3. Lastly, the trust will review and take action to reduce agency spend across the various providers.