Charity urging NHS trust chiefs to resolve hospital’s staff crisis

A PATIENTS’ charity has called on health chiefs to resolve a staffing crisis at an East Coast hospital.

The 12-bed inpatient ward at Hornsea and District War Memorial Cottage Hospital closed suddenly on Friday, July 29, because of staff sickness and has yet to re-open.

Now, with the prospect of annual leave adding further pressure to the staffing pool, the hospital’s League of Friends fears the ward will remain closed for the rest of summer.

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Friends’ spokeswoman June Barton said: “I’m very concerned because it was done at such short notice, without any notice really. We are told it’s being monitored on a daily basis and I’m just waiting for someone to tell me we’ve got patients in there.

“We are told it’s due to long-term sickness but it coincides with holiday time and we had something similar last year. What I’m told by people high up is it’s due to the fact there are not enough suitably qualified nurses to take charge of a ward.

“You wonder whether it will probably be (closed for) the whole of August. There’s a shortage of suitably qualified nurses; I wouldn’t like to think of anybody being unwell at the moment.”

The four patients who were on the ward at the time had to be transferred by ambulance to other hospitals in the area. When the closure was ordered Beverley and Holderness Tory MP Graham Stuart said he was given assurances by Humber NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, that the ward would be re-opened “soon”.

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Mr Stuart said it was “essential” that appropriate staff were recruited, managed and motivated to maintain services at the hospital.

Writing on social networking website Facebook, the MP added: “I’m pressing the Humber Foundation Trust (which now runs our community hospitals) to get Hornsea’s beds open again as soon as possible. The chief executive tells me this morning that, although the staff sickness situation has improved, it’s still not possible to re-open.

“They will have another meeting this week to review the situation but, in the meantime, have opened five additional beds in other community hospitals.”

The trust said in a statement it was having difficulty finding staff from the nursing “bank” to provide cover during sickness absences.

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It said: “The ward is still closed temporarily. We are relying on sourcing staff from our bank to cover staff sickness and as it is the summer, people go on holiday and have commitments such as looking after children during school holidays which can affect their availability. Bank staff choose to be on the bank because of the flexibility this offers them – ie, they can work ad hoc shifts and we have a large number of shifts to fill in order to be able to provide and sustain a safe service.

“All we can say at this time is that we will open the unit when it is clinically safe to do.”

The ward will close permanently next year when a new £19m, 30-bed community hospital opens in Beverley.

This will see inpatient beds also close at Alfred Bean Hospital in Driffield, while Beverley Westwood Hospital will close entirely.

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Mrs Barton also called on NHS East Riding – which is building the new hospital in Beverley – to clarify whether it still intended to invest in new facilities in Hornsea. The organisation has already carried out a £1.3m refurbishment of Alfred Bean Hospital, and spent a further £900,000 on a new clinic in Cottingham.

Alex Seale, director of joint commissioning for NHS East Riding, said: “We are looking to carry out a period of consultation with GPs and other local representatives to discuss proposals for future health care services in Hornsea. This will be later in the year.

“This is the same approach we took prior to the hospital refurbishment in Driffield and the development of the Cottingham Clinic.”

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