QA Hospital: Number of patients receiving 'corridor care' in Portsmouth increases in June
The number of hospital patients receiving ‘corridor care’ in Portsmouth has gone up
The number of people receiving “corridor care” at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth has increased.
Last month, for the first time NHS figures were released which showed how many people in English hospitals were receiving treatment outside wards.
“Corridor care” does not necessarily mean that patients were kept in a corridor, but means they were accommodated in areas that do not count as a “clinically appropriate and safe setting” - which looks at privacy issues, whether there is a toilet nearby, and whether lights can be turned off to allow sleep. If a patient is kept there for more than 45 minutes, it counts towards the total.
In the first batch of figures, which covered May, Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust (PHT), which runs QA, reported there were 60 people each day in May in its emergency department receiving “corridor care”, which was 2.7 per cent of the total number of patients treated in corridors in the country.
The figure for those on hospital wards was 25 people a day, or 3.7 per cent of the total number of patients who were given corridor care.
New figures, for June, amalgamate the total and overall the trust had 89 people each day being given corridor care, and increase of four a day. During this time the hospital declared a critical incident after its cooling system failed in the June heatwave and temperatures rose inside the building.
Last month, reacting to the figures, PHT’s chief nursing officer Steve Thomas said that the trust apologised to any patients who were affected.
“We are sorry that our patients are receiving care in corridors,” he said. “It is not the standard of care we aspire to deliver and we know it significantly impacts the experience of our patients, their carers, and our staff. We are committed to stopping corridor care through delivery of our improvement plans to remove unnecessary delays for our patients.”
He said that the reason was that the demand on QA for emergency care outstripped its capacity, but that corridor care was an area being worked on. He pointed out that the hospital had worked on reducing handover times of patients from ambulances which had helped the system, but he accepted there was more to do.