Express & Star

Seriously ill patients at Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital moved about at 3am

Seriously-ill patients are being moved around wards at 3am at a Black Country hospital to make space for more admissions.

Published

The open door policy at Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital means no-one who attends is turned away, but this leads to existing patients being moved into different wards, often in the middle of the night, to make space.

The practice adopted by the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust is a concern for the local branch of Healthwatch, which is to hold talks with staff and patients on how to best deal with incoming patients. One patient revealed his experience to the meeting of the trust on Tuesday.

The patient, known as Paul, said: "I was moved around at 3am because it was part of their open door policy. It means that staff have to constantly re-prioritise and shift things around, including patients.

"I play music as one of my hobbies, and the only thing I can compare it to is like the staff are playing music but without the sheet music to follow, they can be playing and then something happens and they just have to respond to it."

Paul, who is from Wolverhampton, was admitted following problems with his legs and was diagnosed with a a rare neurological disorder.

Paul did accept that being moved around was necessary however, and was happy to do so to make room for further patients. He said that the procedure did not impact the 'high quality' care and support he received at the hospital, which made him 'proud' to be patient of the Trust.

Cheryl Etches, the trust's chief nursing officer, said: "Without that open door policy, patients would be left with nowhere to go.

"We have 10 vacancies for nurses on the ward where Paul was treated at the moment but we are still providing good quality care. Increasing the number of nurses is only part of the solution, not the whole solution.

"We are monitoring the effects of this policy on a daily basis. I do feel really itchy about this.

The effect of the policy is one of the things we are aware of and we try to only move patients for clinical reasons."

Donald Mcintosh, chief officer for Healthwatch Wolverhampton, said: "The moving of patients at 3am and alike would be a concern for us.

"I would be interested to speak to staff and patients who have experienced this to discuss how they find the practice and what can be done to improve patient experience."

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.