Extra £500,000 to ease pressure on Walsall Manor Hospital
An extra £500,000 is to be ploughed into easing pressure on a Black Country hospital this year.
Funding towards Walsall Manor Hospital's winter resilience programme will be increased to £1.6 million under plans from the borough's Clinical Commissioning Group.
Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust which runs the hospital was forced to declare a major incident in January due to the demand on resources.
Hospitals draw up annual winter plans to deal with the expected influx in patients and last year in Walsall extra bed space was created and staff levels boosted.
It is not known at this stage what the new money will be used on by health chiefs.
A report from Dr Amrik Gill, chairman of the Walsall Clinical Commissioning Group, said: "Walsall CCG has increased the proportion of winter resilience funding available to the Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust from £1.1m in 2014/15 to £1.6m in 2015/16.
"The opportunity to increase this investment has arisen as a consequence of targeted recurrent funding from the Better Care Fund."
It comes as Walsall Manor has been battling against rising admissions which has seen growing numbers of patients coming from Staffordshire.
It has seen the hospital struggle to hit the four-hour A&E target of 95 per cent over the last year.
The under-pressure hospital faced one of its busiest periods ever and was pushed to full capacity, with almost 100 extra patients a week between the end of December and early January.
The hospital was forced to declare a major incident at the height of its problems, with more staff drafted in to help with the demand.
Since then, it has launched a £3.5m recruitment drive to bring in up to 85 permanent nurses and 35 care support workers under long-term moves to boost its workforce.
This is despite the need for the hospital trust to cut almost 50 posts as it plans to save £10.5m this year.
The equivalent of 48 roles are expected to be lost, although health bosses insist the overall number of staff will increase due to the agreed investment in nurses.
The trust set a savings target of £13m last year but is targeting £10.5m over the next 12 months.
