Midlands trust fights to ‘preserve' elective work amid covid bed closures

Covid’s second surge has begun disrupting elective care at hospitals outside the north west, HSJ has learned.

At Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, the number of patients with COVID-19 is “rising fast”, causing ward closures and elective care disruption, according to an internal memo seen by HSJ.

The memo, sent by the trust’s divisional director for surgery Simon Parsons, said covid admissions to the trust “are way past 100 and rising fast”.

“There are also outbreaks of covid on certain wards, which have resulted in closures of beds,” Mr Parsons said.

“I am afraid the elective programme is going to be disrupted and we are doing everything we can to preserve as much elective work as possible,” said the memo to staff at the major teaching hospital.

Mr Parsons called on clinicians to concentrate on “getting patients discharged in a timely way” and for them to escalate instances where patients were fit for discharge but not leaving the trust.

“We are not asking you to make unsafe discharges but to keep length of stay as short as possible,” Mr Parsons said.

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Source: HSJ, 14 October 2020