News story

28th March 2005

Bed Crisis At Frenchay/Southmead Shows "Folly" of Bed Cut Plan

Letters to local GPs leaked to Northavon MP Steve Webb have admitted that there is a beds crisis at North Bristol NHS Trust, which runs Frenchay and Southmead Hospital. According to one of the letters, earlier this month there were at one point 50 patients waiting in Frenchay A&E and 35 patients at Southmead "..with virtually no bed capacity". The MP said that this demonstrated the folly of plans to reduce the number of beds across the two hospitals by over one hundred over coming years.

The first letter, dated 18th March, was sent by the Director of Primary Care at South Gloucestershire PCT to all local GPs. It said that because of high rates of admittance to casualty and problems of infection on wards, North Bristol Trust "..have a serious problem with bed capacity". The letter urged GPs to "..do everything possible to avoid admissions to hospital".

Six days later (24th March), a further letter said that the problems were continuing, with nine wards closed due to the Norwalk virus, and problems being compounded because of staff being absent due to illness. GPs were again urged to do "everything possible" to avoid admissions to hospital, whilst local nursing homes had also been urged to manage people within the homes where possible. An "internal" action plan had been developed by North Bristol Trust, with Department of Health Support, "to help them get  through this period".

Commenting on the two letters, Steve Webb said:

"It is abundantly clear that hard-working hospital staff are facing massive problems at present, with not enough beds to go round. Literally dozens of people have been stuck in casualty departments because there was no hospital bed for them.

"The idea that the long-term answer to the problems of our local NHS is fewer beds is totally unacceptable if we can't even cope at the moment. There are clearly not enough beds at present, and with the local population set to grow substantially, what chance is there of coping in the future if there are fewer beds?"

The MP said he would be contacting the local Health Authority urging them to look again at plans to cut bed numbers as part of a big shake-up of local NHS services.