HEALTH services in Worcestershire are “failing” and will struggle to cope throughout the winter, NHS bosses have been told.
Karen May spoke passionately about the problems facing the health service at a meeting of Worcestershire County Council’s health overview and scrutiny committee on Monday (October 12).
Councillors were being told about plans to tackle winter pressures across various NHS trusts that serve the county.
These include increasing the number of beds in so-called “virtual wards” in Worcestershire from 20 to 45.
PRESSURES: Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester (Image: Phil Wilkinson-Jones/LDRS)
The programme sees patients looked after in their own homes by a combination of home visits and video technology.
More than 80,000 additional primary care appointments are also planned to take place between now and March 2027, including outside usual GP surgery hours.
Committee chair Karen May said: “All these plans are great, but if they can’t be enacted, what is the point?
“If this is a whole-system approach, why aren’t we enabling paramedics to do more treatments on the spot to prevent someone with dementia being dragged into an ambulance?
“Why are people in care homes spending three hours getting medications on a daily basis?
“You won’t fix this system until you fix further up the line and at the moment, it’s not happening.
“Our carers are left under severe stress and duress as a consequence of people not coming in at the correct point of action. All of these are pieces in a puzzle.
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“I can’t shout out loud enough the Alexandra Hospital but they’re inundated, they’re getting abuse off some of their patients because they’ve sat there for 12 hours. It’s not their fault the demand isn’t being controlled further down the line.
“We’re failing,” she said, telling NHS bosses in the room to take individual responsibility for the roles they play in the service.
“With the situation I’ve witnessed in the last week in mid-October, in a care home, you are not going to be able to cope,” said Cllr May. “Because nobody holds the Primary Care Network to account. You shouldn’t be promised a phone call back and it never materialises. Our patients deserve better.”
Mari Gay, managing director of the NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire integrated care board (ICB), said: “I think this winter we need to get out of the meetings and actually see what’s happening on the ground – and it could be that we’re not communicating well enough with our staff across the partnership.”
She had previously said trusts were seeing “a reduction in ambulances for over 75s but an increase in the patients choosing to walk into our ED departments, particularly children”, adding: “We’re analysing why that is.”