Health bosses unveil bid to cut Shropshire A&E waits

Waiting times at Telford's Princess Royal Hospital and Royal Shrewsbury Hospital have been increasing over the past year.

In a paper due to be discussed by Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group, it states a list of measures health bosses are introducing to help cut waiting times.

One of these includes having doctors based in the A&E department to see people quicker.

Health bosses hope 40 per cent of patients arriving at A&E during the operating hours of the primary care service are streamed to the GP service.

RSH currently has a primary care service co-located with A&E but PRH does not have a service in place and will require money to accommodate a primary care service alongside A&E.

Officials are also hoping to reduce ambulance handover delays by using escalation nurses as necessary at times of peak demand and also provide refresher training for all staff.

The paper states: "In the light of continued poor A&E performance locally and significant changes in the personnel at the CCG, Shropshire CCG undertook a detailed piece of work to understand what had caused the deterioration in A&E performance from 15/16 to 16/17.

"This analysis was then used to get an agreed understanding across the local health and social care system of what the underlying issues are and to identify the key actions required for the system as a whole to focus on to rapidly improve performance initially and then more gradual sustainable improvement going forwards.

"The performance in emergency care in Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin was analysed in the context of trends over the previous 15 months and comparisons of this winter with the same period in the previous year."

The new figures show that the number of A&E four-hour breaches has been increasing over the last 15 months, with a 66 per cent increase in October to December 2016 compared to October to December 2015.

Government targets say hospitals should see 95 per cent of patients turning up at A&E in four hours or less.

The paper added: "The majority of issues contributing to A&E breaches are down to internal flow.

"This is of course directly linked to the well-known workforce challenges the trust has both in senior decision makers in the emergency departments and the numbers of junior doctors available to support the discharge process.

"Actions being taken by the trust to try and find more innovative solutions to the workforce challenges include; deputy medical director leading on alternative solutions for middle grade and junior doctor cover and attempted joint appointments with neighbouring trusts but no success to date.

"A&E performance has improved month on month from its low point in January."