North west London hospitals’ emergency care is under pressure, just as Central Middlesex and Hammersmith hospitals A&E departments have closed.
A week after the closure of the two mentioned units, staff at Ealing hospital received an email from the Ealing Hospital NHS Trust saying there was increased demand for emergency care and inpatient beds.
The email sent on September 16 said all escalation beds at Ealing Hospital are being used and they have had to open additional areas to accommodate patients, which has impacted patients coming in for day case treatments.
It asked staff to ensure all patients identified for discharge are able to be discharged at the earliest opportunity and all other patients are reviewed early in the day.
Colin Standfield, chair of Ealing Hospital Save Our Services, said: “What they are saying is get people out because they are impacting on beds. We have also heard that over the weekend of September 13-14 there were 100 breaches of the four hour A&E target which is no surprise.
“If you have someone there who you would like to keep in for a day, well you can’t. It becomes a re-admission. They are shifting them out early as far as they can do it.
“They have closed two A&Es and nothing has been done to take up the slack, clearly necessary arrangements are not in place.
“What’s happened to the urgent care centres? I’m certainly not aware that Ealing hospital urgent care centre has expanded. What’s happening now is that nearby hospitals are being swamped.”
He added: “We were promised no A&E closures would happen before they had put in place suitable and safe alternative provision.
“We told them it would be a disaster, and these are the first showings of what is going to happen over the next couple of years.”
A spokesman from Ealing Hospital NHS Trust said: “Variations in demand for A&E services are common and the discharge processes referred to in this Trust email are part of the normal management of activity surges.”
