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Swindon: Great Western Hospital 'working tirelessly' to free up beds

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Great Western Hospital has a backlog of patients waiting to be discharged

Staff are "working tirelessly" to free up beds following reports one patient spent 99 hours waiting on a trolley, a hospital says.

More than 100 Great Western Hospital (GWH) beds are regularly occupied by people fit to leave with nowhere to go.

This represents one-fifth of the hospital's total capacity, and the public are urged to only attend A&E if they really need to.

The hospital said those waiting for a bed recieved "continuous treatment".

GWH declared a critical incident earlier and has warned of long wait times at A&E and its urgent treatment centre.

In an internal email chain leaked to the Sunday Times, a consultant warned "we're broken and nobody is listening".

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The hospital said the NHS was in a "very challenging position"

The patient's 99 hour wait on a trolley, first reported by the newspaper, is being investigated.

The Swindon hospital said the NHS was in a "very challenging position" this winter and said it was working with other organisations to reduce delays contributed to by bed blocking.

'Worse than normal'

Gill May, chief nurse for Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care Board, said the pressure facing the NHS this winter was "worse than normal".

Speaking to BBC Wiltshire, she said: "Why is this winter different? It's different because we are coming out of a two-to-three year pandemic, we are seeing people presenting sicker.

"We've got flu and we are still getting people with coughs and colds seeking accident and emergency (treatment).

"We also have unprecedented numbers of people waiting in a hospital bed but they are medically fit to leave - and against there's lots of reasons for that, but all of that combined causes our system to be under incredible pressure."

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said the government would be spending an extra £14.1bn on the NHS and social care over the next two years, with a further £500m this winter to help speed up hospital discharge.

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