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Wednesday, December 03, 2008, 13:00
Fifty beds across in North Staffordshire will be made available immediately with the rest coming early in the New Year as patients continue to be stuck on trolleys in corridors.
The move comes as health officials gave a public pledge that the "unacceptable" scenes in the department will not be allowed to happen again. It is aimed at freeing some of the near-100 beds at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire blocked by patients whose treatment has been completed, but have no safe environment in which to recover fully.
And it is just part of a six-point plan drawn up by bosses at both the hospital and the area's two primary care trusts to tackle the crisis as the early onset of winter brings in even more cases.
The others include more rigorous checking to make sure the complex has 12 empty beds by 2pm each day for new admissions and a push to discharge 50 patients a day where it is safe to do so - a 25 per cent increase.
In addition, a recently-opened unit staffed by GPs to help people not ill enough to need an A&E doctor will extend its operation to seven days a week. Hospital staff will also advise patients if they can be better treated at other settings such as their local surgery.
And a troubleshooter has been appointed to make sure ambulances can offload patients and get back on the road quicker.
The improvements come after national auditors produced detailed data on causes for the bottlenecks and found ambulances were bringing in blue-light emergencies every four minutes to make it the busiest hospital in the West Midlands.
Officials hope the measures will help the complex hit Government treatment time targets it has been badly missing in the past few weeks.
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