This in from the Isle of Wight NHS, in their own words. Ed
The IW NHS Trust has had to postpone some non urgent elective procedures today and some operations may be affected later this week. This is to accommodate the number of unwell patients in hospital some of which the Trust and relatives are unable to find suitable places for discharge to where the patient is well enough to leave hospital.
Staff at the Trust are working incredibly hard across all services – hospital, ambulance, community and mental health, to ensure the Island’s health and care system continues to deliver safe, effective care whilst under significant ongoing pressure.
Additional shift volunteers needed
The Trust has opened some additional capacity to cope with the current demand but would like to open more. To do so the Trust needs staff to volunteer for additional shifts.
Any staff – Nurses, Nursing Assistants or Allied Health Professionals – who want to work additional hours are asked to ring in to the Trust’s Hospital Control Room on ext 6600 or 6601.
Mark Price, the Trust’s Executive Director on Call at St. Mary’s Hospital says the decision to postpone a patient’s procedure is not one taken lightly:
“To ensure those people who are seriously ill and require urgent treatment are given the care they require, we have had to create capacity in the system and to do this we have had to take the difficult decision to postpone some routine, non urgent procedures. Cancelling and rearranging operations is always the absolute last resort but unfortunately it has been unavoidable.”
Mr Price continued:
“We realise that patients and their families have to make arrangements when they plan to go into hospital for an operation, and that a postponement can be a great disappointment and an inconvenience. We are sincerely sorry for this but hope people understand the reason why. We are trying to reschedule operations as quickly as we can.”
Cancellations will be notified
All patients affected by the postponements will be contacted. All other patients who have not been contacted should attend for their appointment or procedure as scheduled.
The Trust is continuing to work with the local authority’s social service teams and the Island’s nursing and residential care homes to ensure those ready to leave hospital can be found appropriate placements. Families and carers of patients’ who are fit to be discharged from hospital are being asked to do all they can to help ensure that their relatives and clients can leave hospital to be cared for in a more suitable environment as soon as they are ready. It is well known that patients recover more quickly when in their own home or a non-hospital setting.
The majority of services provided by Isle of Wight NHS Trust are commissioned and funded by Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), NHS England and Isle of Wight Council.
Image: Lars Ploughmann under CC BY 2.0
