QA Hospital: Figures show Portsmouth still under strain as 'relentless' winter pressures grow

Strain on urgent and emergency care services are still have a significant impact on patient treatment, despite the hospital being taken out of a critical incident. Two critical incidents were declared at Queen Alexandra Hospital in December, with demand outstripped available capacity.

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Data from NHS England shows the medical facility was 95.3 per cent full on average for the week ending January 22. In total, 1,011 beds were occupied, with 1,061 being opened.

On January 18, the medical facility was at full capacity. This corresponds with increasingly high discharge and ambulance wait times, leaving patients waiting hours in some cases for a bed.

Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive at NHS Providers, said: ‘The pressure on urgent and emergency care services is relentless. Trust leaders are doing all they can to deliver high-quality, timely patient care, and have made remarkable progress on reducing ambulance handover delays in the last week despite higher A&E arrivals.

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‘However, much more needs to be done to tackle the growing list of challenges facing the NHS, including sky-high staff vacancies, unfunded pay awards and escalating strike action.’ Nurses across Portsmouth took a stand last week as thousands went on strike across the country to campaign for better pay and working conditions.

The sentiment was ‘claps don’t pay our bills’. Ms Cordery added patients are staying longer in hospital due to serious illnesses. She said: ‘As trust leaders prepare for the biggest NHS staff walkout in less than two weeks, they are having to grapple with unsafe levels of bed occupancy.’