University Hospital of North Staffordshire faces £2m bill for private beds
SCORES of places have had to be purchased in private nursing homes by the NHS in a bid to head off a beds crisis at Staffordshire's biggest hospital.
Action is needed at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire to compensate for the expected loss of 30 beds at the Stoke-on-Trent City Council-run St Michael's rehabilitation centre.
-
Taxpayers face forking out an estimated £2 million per year as the hospital trust moves to buy nursing home beds to cope with the shortfall.
The closure of the Chell-based home is intended to save £883,000 every year in public money.
But now taxpayers face forking out an estimated £2 million per year as the hospital trust moves to buy nursing home beds to cope with the shortfall.
Cheap Car Insurance For Drink Drivers -Contact Insure365 01782...
View detailsCheap Car Insurance For Drink Drivers -Contact Insure365 01782 898188, Free Legal Protection Included valued at £25.00
Terms: 1 Voucher Per Customer
Contact: 01782 898188
Valid until: Friday, June 21 2013
St Michael's has been used to take in recovering patients from the hospital for several years.
Plans to close it have now been agreed by Stoke-on-Trent City Council.
But delays facing emergency cases at the hospital are still longer than Government targets, despite it opening more than 100 extra beds. So, as a result of losing the St Michael's beds, the area's health funding bodies have bought the use of 60 nursing home rooms to ease the crisis.
The move will allow the UHNS to discharge patients sooner – and free more of its own 1,144 beds to take cases flooding through A&E.
Health campaigners say the NHS has had to invest into the private sector to make up for the closure of St Michael's.
Ian Syme, co-ordinator of North Staffordshire Healthwatch, said: "Losing St Michael's will undermine the local health economy's attempt to either keep people out of the UHNS or ensure they can be discharged quickly and safely.
"It is now having to invest large sums in these nursing home places, scattered all over the place, instead of having all care all under one roof at St Michael's"
Specialist staff from the hospital and the county's community health trust will support the nursing homes to help the NHS patients back to full health. Many of the 60 beds have been purchased at Stoke-on-Trent's biggest private home – Stadium Court in Cobridge – but other centres are also part of the arrangements. The hospital's A&E unit has been hit by a 10 percent rise in patients in a year, with many of those attending needing to be admitted to beds.
But the shortage means patients are kept waiting much longer than the four-hour Government deadline.
UHNS chief operating officer Mark Mould said: "To cope with this increase in demand we need 70 more beds than we did last year.
"In addition around 50 patients are in beds beyond the date when they should have been discharged and others are unable to leave as they are on wards that have been closed by the norovirus infection.
"To help, 60 places have been spot-purchased in nursing homes."
Medical director Dr Gavin Russell said: "More patients must be treated in the community to stop them having to come in here.
"We need to intervene in their care three to four days before their health deteriorates to the point it needs hospital emergency treatment."
7 Comments
by stevenweiss
Friday, February 22 2013, 10:22PM
“New Labour's NHS have been doing this for years. Whole private hospitals have been built off the back of NHS subcontracting. Privatisation by the back door? Yes! By a labour government? Yes! Many NHS hospitals themselves are administered and in some cases rented off private companies. It was well hidden by New Labour and is only now coming to light in a slightly more open form of government. Whether the incumbent folks will reverse such actions is anyone's guess.”
by Valeplace
Friday, February 22 2013, 8:46PM
“Couldn't run a,,,,,,,,,,and brewery come to mind.”
by stokepotter
Friday, February 22 2013, 7:27PM
“But this Labour controlled Council can still find all that money for a new Civic Centre that is not needed. They pass the buck onto the NHS when it is their moral duty to care for the elderly in this City. Just what do they spend our rates on other than themselves with their gross allowances and expenses. ? Get them OUT at the very next opportunity and lets get Councillors in who care about us - the community - and who can control those spendthrift idiots that they call 'Officers'. Vote for the person and not the party. This Labour lot have been letting the people of Stoke on Trent down for decades. Things must change for the better if we are ever to prosper in Stoke on Trent.”
by Patricia_62
Friday, February 22 2013, 6:55PM
“So why is the acute trust spending money they don't have providing services the Community PCTs supposed to provide?”
by Jobeeone
Friday, February 22 2013, 3:33PM
“This is a Labour Council. What on earth differentiates this Council from a Lib Dem or Tory Council? They have, by closing St Michaels Centre of Excellence, privatised the care people need when coming out of hospital and cost the taxpayers more to boot. They know the care in the private sector is not as good (and is sometimes shocking) but they don't seem to care. As to this nonsense about caring for people in the community, they knew it wasn't true when they said it.
Or are the decisions made by the Councilllors at all? Are they just a load of nodding donkeys? If so, what's the point of us all voting in elections? We desperately need Councillors with brains and courage who listen and put the interests of the people of the city first. Sadly, we are miles away from that.
I'm on the march tomorrow not just to protest but in the hope that something positive can emerge out of all our anger and frustration.”
by Robnoxious
Friday, February 22 2013, 1:43PM
“More when St Micheals closes. We are heading for another Stafford, only on a bigger scale. Where the care received gets swept under the carpet”
by BucknallMel
Friday, February 22 2013, 12:33PM
“Well, the council don't give two hoots about this - the extra money comes out of the NHS budget, not theirs. And the care home companies get richer and richer, no matter how awful the standards of care in their premises, nor how badly paid or treated their staff are.”