GP’s dire warning over East Lancashire hospital 'chaos'

1:00pm Friday 14th November 2008

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By Camilla Sutcliffe »

A FAMILY doctor has launched a stinging attack on East Lancashire’s hospital service, warning of ‘third world’ scenes if there was a flu pandemic.

Dr Iain Ashworth, GP at Barrowford Surgery, said bed numbers had been slashed since the merging of Burnley and Blackburn services a year ago, leading to patients being discharged dangerously early.

And he claimed the crowded Royal Blackburn Hospital, which was revealed in August to be on ‘red alert’ for more than two days a week, did not have the flexibility to cope with a pandemic illness or major accident.

Hospital bosses denied patients were at risk, and Blackburn health watchdog Tony Humphrys said GPs had a responsibility to support the hospital.

But councillor and campaigner for the re-instatement of Burnley emergency facilities Darren Reynolds said the doctor’s comments left the management’s reputation “in tatters”.

Blackburn with Darwen health scrutiny committee is to hold an emergency meeting with chief executive Marie Burnham after the hospital’s emergency department closed its doors to ambulances for three hours on Monday night, as eight vehicles queued outside its door.

Dr Ashworth, 46, a former hospital consultant and Barrowford GP for 15 years, said the overcrowding was putting patients at risk.

He said: “People are being discharged unsafely all over the trust, because they desperately need the beds.

"I had a patient a few weeks ago who went in for a urostomy, which leaves the patient with a tube and bag from the abdomen.

“He was discharged three times in a condition which meant he could have developed peritonitis and died.”

He said he was concerned another patient could develop fatal septicaemia.

He sent the man to hospital, calling ahead to tell staff he needed to be seen within minutes of arrival, but he waited six hours in Blackburn’s Urgent Care Centre.

He added: “I’ve lost count of the number of operations and outpatient appointments my patients have had cancelled because of the lack of beds, and dozens of patients are in the wrong wards for their conditions at any one time.

"The whole trust is in chaos - not just the emergency department.”

He said: “We are due a pandemic flu outbreak - and when it happens it will be like the third world.

“People will be dying on the motorway trying to find a hospital that can take them, and the crematoriums won’t be able to cope.

“The whole system is getting clogged up on ordinary nights in November, and even when the alert status is green, there can still be less than 20 beds in the whole trust.

"The margins are so tight that even something like a four-car pile-up on the motorway could force them to close.

“Bed numbers have reduced all over the NHS, but in East Lancashire they’ve gone down more than 35 per cent.

“The hospital bosses tell people the capacity is the same, which it is in terms of the number of people being admitted and treated, but to do that they are risking people’s lives by discharging them too soon and leaving GPs and health visitors to pick up the pieces.”

Dr Ashworth said the system could only be brought up to scratch by reversing the Meeting Patients’ Needs review changes, implemented on November 1 last year.

Under the changes, Burnley General Hospital was stripped of its capability to take ambulance patients, while all emergency surgical and medical admissions were also moved to the Royal Blackburn Hospital.

In the next phase, all complex births, gynaecology and newborn care will move to the new £30 million unit at Burnley General Hospital, set to open in 2011.

He said: “The consultation two years ago was a joke - it was clear from then that Burnley was being severely downgraded.

"I don’t really see how it can be called a general hospital any more, because there’s so much it can’t do.

“Everything is about the money. The medical staff are constantly firefighting to avoid the next crisis.”

Hospital bosses confirmed bed numbers had been reduced during 2007, but said this was not related to Meeting Patients’ Needs and was done because hospital stays had already shortened.

No further reductions have taken place since the changeover.

Chief executive Marie Burnham said: “We have robust processes in place to ensure patients are only discharged from our care when it is clinically appropriate to do so.

“We do not have the details of the patients Dr Ashworth is referring to and in any case, like Dr Ashworth, we cannot comment publicly on individual patients due to patient confidentiality.

"We are of course happy to investigate the GP’s concerns in detail if he would like to formally raise these matters with us rather than through the press.

“There are occasions when we do have to cancel non-urgent planned surgery due to emergency patients taking clinical priority, but we do this very reluctantly.”

Councillor Reynolds, of the It’s Our NHS campaign group, said: “The solution to the pressure problems cannot come from turfing patients out prematurely. Bed numbers need to be increased, and services must be restored to Burnley.”

Councillor Humphrys, vice chairman of the Blackburn with Darwen health scrutiny committee, said: “We have arranged an urgent meeting with the chief executive because of our concerns about the emergency department having to close on Monday night.

“But GPs have got to realise that we have an ageing population who need more care, and that extra pressure is put on hospitals when people can’t get to see their doctor.”

“Doctors have a responsibility to see patients as soon as they can so that they don’t have to go to A and E.”