Wirral NHS Trust A&E departments seeing 'unprecedented demand no other hospital has'

An NHS trust said it is seeing increases in ambulances coming into its hospitals and "unprecedented demand" at Accident and Emergency departments.

Wirral University Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust told Wirral councillors it is trying to understand what is causing a 20% increase in patients turning up at A&E.The NHS trust, which manages both Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge Hospitals on the Wirral, recently declared an internal critical incident, otherwise referred to a business continuity incident.

This was due to “the ongoing unprecedented demand” at Arrowe Park’s emergency department which was “more than we have experienced in any winter period".

The Trust employs over 6,000 staff and currently has a capacity of around 800 beds, all of which are currently full.

The trust appeared before Wirral councillors at an adult health and social care meeting, where councillors questioned whether the trust was prepared for winter “with all the pressures that the hospitals are under.”

Dr Nikki Stevenson, executive medical director at the trust, said the trust was drawing up plans to create capacity, adding: “The demands on the NHS this year have been winter all year round but this year we are all experiencing it.

"We have an increase in respiratory viruses, it’s getting colder. We know to anticipate that.”She said the trust was taking people into the hospital so that ambulance crews could go back out and respond to calls, adding: “It’s really scary if you’re at home and you phone for an ambulance and it doesn’t come.”

She admitted this did lead to corridor care but argued leaving patients waiting in ambulances was unacceptable.

She said the trust had been visited by NHS England to look at the emergency department because the Wirral had seen a 20% increase in ambulances transporting people to hospital, adding; “No other hospital has seen that so there’s something that’s going on there so we’re just trying to understand what it is.”

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