Isle of Wight NHS Trust scales back services to free up hospital beds

The Isle of Wight's only hospital is analysing why patients are unable to leave, despite being well enough.

The island's NHS Trust has had to scale back some services to create increased capacity as it faces continued pressure on bed space.

The trust saw a 20% increase in the number of over 80s attending the emergency department in December, compared to 2021.

It announced its latest critical incident at the start of December and that is still in force.

Darren Cattell, the trust's chief executive, apologised on Thursday at its board meeting, saying they were not providing the services they would wish to, and staff resilience was being tested.

Chief operating officer, Joe Smyth, said they did not understand what was causing the increase in demand, especially as more money had been put into adult social care while community schemes were taking a significant number of patients.

He said it was not having the desired effect as people were still coming into the hospital, staying too long and the hospital had in effect become too small to manage the demand.

Mr Smyth said they need to understand what is stopping the flow as there seemed to be some beds available in community care settings they could never access.

A deadline for the analysis has been set for the end of the month so the trust can start to answer the questions and what it is doing and when it can improve.

Mr Cattell said it would allow the trust a sharp focus to enable them to make a difference.