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A senior director at the Western Trust says there has been a significant drop in the number of patients enduring ‘double emergency department’ waits at both Enniskillen and Derry before getting a hospital bed.
Mark Gillespie, Director of Planned Care Services, at the Western Trust, told the Stormont Health Committee that a year ago only a quarter of patients assessed at the South West Acute Hospital ED as needing a bed were admitted to hospital at Altnagelvin without having to undergo a further assessment at the Derry A&E.
This has since been improved with more than three quarters of patients assessed in Fermanagh now going directly to a bed in Altnagelvin.
Mr. Gillespie was briefing the committee on the suspension of emergency general surgery at SWAH due to staffing shortages in December 2022.
Mark Gillespie, Director of Planned Care Services, at the Western Trust.Mark Gillespie, Director of Planned Care Services, at the Western Trust.
Mark Gillespie, Director of Planned Care Services, at the Western Trust.
Last year a Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) review of the pathways resulting from the temporary suspension recommended that ‘patients assessed in SWAH and accepted for admission to the Altnagelvin surgical service should be admitted directly to the surgical ward and should not be required to attend or wait within the ED at Altnagelvin’.
Health Committee chair Philip McGuigan asked: “How are you getting on with implementing the recommendation on the double emergency department (ED) waits? It is of major concern that people are waiting in EDs twice, before travel and after travel.”
Mr. Gillespie replied: “From a trust perspective, we have made good inroads on some of the recommendations. We are right to recognise and acknowledge the double ED waits. Pre May last year, 24 per cent to 25 per cent of patients went directly to a bed in Altnagelvin.
“From a patient-experience perspective, that was not what we had wished for. In May last year, we reset our systems. Since then, as a result of the temporary change that has been in place, 79 per cent of patients go directly to a bed.”
He told the committee that since the suspension of emergency general surgery in Fermanagh almost two thousand patients have been redirected to Derry.
“I come back to the direct-to-beds piece. From December 2022 until January 31, 2025, 1,958 patients were admitted to Altnagelvin as a result of the change in service,” the committee heard.