During 15 – 21 December 2014, the A&E departments at Epsom and St Helier hospitals, including the dedicated eye casualty at Sutton, saw a staggering 3,138 patients – that’s more than 18 patients through the doors every hour.
But, thanks to the hard work of staff and volunteers across the hospitals and the support of community health care, commissioners and local GP services, the hospitals have returned to business as usual and, although still very busy, are performing well.
Chief Operating Officer, Jackie Sullivan said: “Through the colder, darker days of winter, there is always an increase in the number of people falling ill or injuring themselves, and our patients need us more than ever. Although this winter has been particularly challenging – for us, and NHS services across the country – we have done absolutely everything in our power to make sure patients were seen as quickly as possible, and the vast majority of appointments weren’t affected by the increasing demand.
“That said, winter hasn’t finished yet, so there is a high chance demand could ramp back up again. I would like to assure our patients that we will continue to work closely with our healthcare partners in the community to deliver the very best of care. We have had some great support from our whole system partners in response to ongoing A&E pressure. I would like to thank senior managers from our clinical commissioning groups, social care, and community services who spent a lot of time at our hospital during this busy time, positively impacting on the number of patients that we could care for and discharge.”
James Blythe, Director of Commissioning and Strategy at Surrey Downs Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), added: “We have worked together with our hospitals, community services providers, social care and the voluntary sector to put in place innovative approaches to helping people stay well and to be cared for in the most appropriate setting. These measures have supported our hospitals to continue to offer timely and high quality emergency care for those who need it. Staff from a wide range of organisations have worked flexibly together to find the best way to support each patient and we will build on this joint working as we plan for the future.”
Dr Chris Elliott, Chief Clinical Officer, NHS Sutton CCG added: “Working together has kept the local NHS going so far this winter, even through the toughest of times. As the commissioners of local health services, we have been working with Epsom and St Helier to support them as much as possible.
“One initiative has been to increase the number of GPs in our GP out of hours service (SELDOC) which is based in St Helier. This has meant that almost twice as many patients were seen between Christmas and New Year. This increased presence will continue until the end of January when we will review it to see whether it needs to continue into February.
“Outside of the hospital, we have again worked with SELDOC. Our ‘Doc in a Car’ initiative supports the Ambulance Service by enabling a GP to also attend non-life threatening ambulance calls which means patients can often be cared for safely at home by the GP rather than being taken to hospital. Again, this has been very successful, and we know that 90% of patients seen by “Doc in a Car” did not then need to be taken to hospital.
“It is vital that the local NHS works together as a whole system at all times, but particularly over the challenging winter period; I believe we have really shown this winter what partnership working can achieve.”