Hospital pressures to ease as new beds open

MEDIA RELEASE 18 July 2007

Hospital pressures to ease as new beds open

Waitemata District Health Board (DHB) is opening 25 new inpatient beds and implementing strategies to free up existing beds over the next six weeks to alleviate the winter gridlock at North Shore and Waitakere Hospitals.

The measures will enable the DHB to continue providing safe and clinically appropriate services in a timely manner.

“Over the past eight weeks North Shore Hospital has been running at 100 per cent occupancy, with Waitakere Hospital not far behind,” says Dave Davies, Waitemata DHB CEO.

“When hospitals reach this level, they quickly end up in gridlock and the demand for beds, and access to acute and elective services, becomes untenable.”

Mr Davies says patients coming in to the emergency departments are unable to progress through to a ward due to insufficient inpatient beds. On average 30 patients a day are waiting for such beds – most in North Shore Hospital’s Emergency Care Centre (ECC).

“The current situation compromises patient comfort and the working conditions for hospital staff and cannot be sustained.”

“With our full allocation of population-based funding having become available on July 1, we now have the ability to open up previously unfunded bed spaces at North Shore and Waitakere Hospitals,” he says.

“When we combine this new investment in inpatient capacity with the current investment in the new Cardiac Catheter Laboratory and the acute theatres development at North Shore Hospital, we can anticipate an immediate impact on reducing patient delays and improved inpatient flow through our hospitals.”

The new beds will be split over the North Shore and Waitakere Hospital sites, and will be used for sub-acute and medical patients.

Mr Davies says that this “whole of organisation approach” has been agreed upon with clinical directors and senior managers from all of the DHB’s services.

Further collaborative work will focus on new procedures for pre- or post-surgical patients not requiring admission, with the aim of further freeing up ward and ECC resources.

The increase in inpatient beds is part of a longer term plan, with the DHB signalling additional investment in further beds, due to open in 2008. An expansion of the North Shore Hospital tower block is also planned with an indicative completion date of 2011.

“The new beds will certainly ease the pressures on our hospitals this winter and make our patients’ experiences much more positive. It will also be a significant relief for staff who have been juggling an incredibly demanding winter workload.

“Our further medium and long-term planning will ensure we keep ahead of the demands of our rapidly increasing population,” Mr Davies says.

ENDS

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