Patients 'sleeping on floors' as Lincolnshire hospitals trust tries to stop emergency departments being overwhelmed

Hospital chiefs have said they are taking action to stop emergency departments being “overwhelmed” as questions are raised around patients sleeping in chairs and on the floor.

Board members of United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust (ULHT), which runs Grantham, Lincoln and Boston hospitals, today (Tuesday) admitted they were oversubscribed for beds and that patients who were medically fit for discharge were blocking issues in emergency departments from being solved.

It followed a question from local resident Vi King who asked: “Why are patients not only having to sleep in chairs but on the floor? I’m sure board members would not like their relatives treated in this way.”

Michelle Harris, Deputy Chief Operating Officer at ULHT, said there were solutions being put in place but that some things did take time.

“No-one would wish relatives or loved ones to be in the situation as described,” she said.

“We are taking a number of actions in terms of rapidly trying to improve our experience for patients given the extreme sensitivity of what you’ve described.

“Some of these things do take a little bit of time to gain traction. We do and are trying to reduce overcrowding in EDs (emergency departments).”

She said that Lincoln County Hospital was built for 45 patients but was regularly seeing more than 100 patients coming to emergency departments for treatment.

The trust is also oversubscribed on beds with 1,003 open at the moment – way above the core of 881.

Meanwhile, she added that there were 142 patients as of this morning who were “medically optimised” and ready to be moved to non-acute settings but who were still in the hospital, an issue which “translates back to the ED being overwhelmed and overcrowded”.

“The size and scale of the unprecedented demand we are facing causes that continued cycle of EDs being overwhelmed,” she said.

It comes as NHS bosses face the start of winter pressures on the service.

Issues are appearing nationwide with cracks in services resulting, for example, in ambulances waiting for long periods to hand over patients at hospitals.

Andrew Morgan ULHT chief executive, told members: “Our trust and other parts of the system in Lincolnshire and nationally remain really busy under significant operational pressure.

“There’s a lot of work around trying to put in place appropriate plans in the winter and there’s lots of work going on about ensuring ourselves that we have the right capacity in place to cope with demand.”