‘We don’t have the bottle’ to hold line on bed numbers, says trust director

A director at a major acute trust said it needs to stop “caving in” to demand pressures by opening extra escalation beds.

Board members at Mid and South Essex were discussing a recent report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which rated medical services as “inadequate”.

The CQC flagged significant staffing shortages and repeated failures to maintain patient records, among other issues.

Deputy chair Alan Tobias told yesterday’s public board meeting: “We have just got to hold the line on these [escalation] beds. We never do. Every year we cave in…

“We have just got to hold the line with this… Do what some other hospitals do, they shut the doors then. We have never had the bottle to do that.”

Barbara Stuttle, another non-executive director, said: “Our staff are exhausted… We don’t have the staff to give the appropriate care to our patients when we have got extra beds. To have extra beds on wards, I know we have had to do it and I know why, [but] you are expecting an already stretched workforce to stretch even further.

“And when that happens, something gives. Record keeping, that’s usually the last thing that gets done because they’d much rather give the care to patients.”

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 28 July 2023