Issue - meetings

Report of the Chief Operating Officer, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, updating the Panel on the pressures and performance at University Hospital Southampton.

The Panel considered the report of the Chief Operating Officer, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, which updated the Panel on the pressures and performance at University Hospital Southampton (UHS).

Jo Teape, Chief Operating Officer, University Hospital Southampton; James Roach, Director of Primary and Local Care, NHS Hampshire & Isle of Wight (NHS HIOW); Natasha Taplin, Director of System Performance and Improvement, NHS Hampshire & Isle of Wight; and Councillor Finn, Cabinet Member for Adults and Health were in attendance and, with the consent of the Chair, addressed the meeting.

The Panel discussed a number of points including:

·  Since September 2024 the average number of attendees per day at the Emergency Department had been around 450.

·  UHS has manged the increased demand in the short term by allocating extra staff to wards and opening clinics for extra hours in the evenings and at weekends, but this could not be sustained in the longer term.

·  UHS had decreased the length of stay for patients requiring urgent care by 8% in the last quarter but demand was still high and patients were experiencing long waits in the Emergency Department.

·  UHS is committed to releasing ambulances and, at busy times, patients queue in a designated corridor in the Emergency Department rather than an ambulance.  This is not ideal and UHS want to eliminate corridor waiting without increasing ambulance waits.

·  The waiting list for planned care is over 60,000.  This compares favourably to most teaching hospitals.

·  At the date of the meeting there were 241 patients in the hospital that were medically optimised for discharge.

·  UHS maintained a good joint working relationship with SCC but there were still delays in the system for planning discharge. Straightforward packages of care can be sourced within 24-48hrs but reablement support can take a week.

·  Consistent pathways and standardised processes across South West Hampshire were supported by UHS.

·  SCC, UHS and NHS HIOW were developing a single discharge planning model for the whole system for frail and vulnerable adults.  Planning discharge from day one in hospital was a challenge for medical staff whose primary role was care for patients, especially when wards were busy.  Delays in discharge tended to occur when individual patient circumstances were complex and practical support outside of hospital was required.

·  There had been an increase in violent and abusive behaviour towards staff, particularly in the Emergency Department and the security presence in the department had to be increased among other measures to support staff safety and morale.

·  UHS benchmarked particularly well compared to other hospitals, the area of greatest concern was managing delays for patients to access appointments or emergency treatment as these were the areas that continued to see persistent high demand.

RESOLVED 

The Panel thanked the workforce at UHS for their hard work in challenging circumstances and made the following recommendations:

1)  That the Panel urged UHS and the Council to continue to work together to improve outcomes relating to the number of patients that do not meet the criteria to reside in hospital  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28