Critical incident continues at NGH and KGH as hospitals warn of significant winter pressures and 'unprecedented' demand

Across Kettering General Hospital (KGH) and Northampton General Hospital (NGH), a critical incident was declared on November 19 due to constraints across the hospitals and increasing pressure on ambulance services.

Recent data from NHS England shows KGH had the second worst handover delays in the whole of the country, with three-quarters of patients arriving in ambulances waiting more than 30 minutes to be transferred to A&E teams. NGH had similar levels of delay at 70.8 per cent of patients, ranking fifth overall.

Chief Executive of University Hospitals of Northamptonshire (UHN), Laura Churchward said at a board meeting held on December 6 that there were patients waiting in corridors for urgent care.

“We know that we’re not providing the service that we would want for our patients and I would like to apologise to some patients who are going through our emergency departments and are sat for a very long time waiting for a bed to come up.

“We’ve seen an unprecedented amount of patients through the two emergency departments which was leading to ambulances queuing outside of our front door, which is not something you can sustain. We called that incident on the 19th [November] because of the pressure we were under. Subsequently, things have got better because we’ve opened a few more beds.

“We’re doing what we can to improve and make it the best situation for patients possible in Northamptonshire, but I do think winter’s going to be really difficult throughout the whole of the NHS.”

Interim Chief Nurse Julie Hogg also commented that she thought the demand seen in November had come early and “caught a lot of organisations out”.

To address some of the winter demand capacity issues, KGH announced that it opened the second floor of its step-down care facility, Spinneyfield, which provides an additional 60 beds. This allows patients who are nearing discharge and no longer require acute hospital care to be moved into a more appropriate setting, therefore freeing up more beds for patients coming through the emergency department.

Ms Churchward said the UHN board had noticed a difference in its performance in relation to urgent care since the extra facility was opened, but added that the number of beds was relatively small and that it was not a “cure-all”. The hospital boss said that work was ongoing with the East Midlands Ambulance Service to ensure that every part of the hospital estate was being used in the “most maximum way”.

She added that the hospitals were looking at the feasibility of converting areas of the estate into new wards from next year to increase the number of beds available and “get on the front foot” with demand.