• Text size
  • A
  • A
  • A
Your spotlight on local services
menu

Emergency Department Update from Matthew Hopkins

13/01/2015

Dear colleagues,

I wanted you to be aware that along with many trusts nationally both our hospital sites are under severe pressure.

Working with our external partners our clinical and executive teams are working extremely hard to create bed capacity to use for patients being admitted through the Emergency Departments, but despite their best efforts we are seeing a ‘backing up' of patients where ambulances have not been able to offload into the departments as quickly as we would like.

London Ambulance Service have been helpful but are unable to divert to other hospitals as all of our local Trusts are in a similar position.

We have a team of senior doctors and nurses leading the work to ensure that our patients remain safe and well cared for and we are focusing our clinical teams on emergency patients.

I would be grateful if you could use your networks to encourage people to use alternatives to the Emergency Departments wherever possible. Many of those coming to our hospitals could be seen more quickly and appropriately at a walk-in centre, by a GP or a pharmacist. Our local GPs have been very supportive by offering additional out-of-hours appointments.

 All of the information is available at www.notalwaysaande.co.uk

 Thank you for your help.

 Matthew Hopkins

Chief Executive, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust

Recent

Healthwatch Barking and Dagenham
Lifeline House
25 Neville Road
Dagenham, Essex RM8 3QS