Hospital turns patients away one day in two

The region's biggest hospital is declaring an overcrowding red alert and closing its doors to non-emergency patients one day in every two on average - reports The Sentinel.

The University Hospital of North Staffordshire has declared the highest state of alert, meaning it is under extreme pressure and immediate action is required, on 329 days out of 802 since April 1, 2005.

Until an alert is cleared, management cancel pre-booked operations and send patients home, ask staff to work extra hours or come in on their days off, pay for beds in the private nursing sector to free up space, and call neighbouring hospitals for help.

And the problem appears to be getting worse. While red alerts happened on one in three days last year, they rose to 38 days out of 72 between April and June 11 this year.

The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that a red alert was declared at the Hartshill hospital on 18 consecutive days in February.

Ian Syme, co-ordinator of North Staffordshire Healthwatch, said hospitals should be running at 80 to 85 per cent capacity so there was slack in case of emergencies.

He said: "The University Hospital hasn't got the capacity to deal with the illness it is encountering.

"There has been a significant cut in staff and in the number of beds.

"But there hasn't been a significant increase in community services and they won't be up to scratch for five to 10 years. I don't know any other profession where staff are under such severe pressure so much of the time.

"The hospital trust has pledged to slash 1,000 jobs, 800 of which have already been cut. It has also axed 145 of its 1,300 beds in the past year to tackle a £15 million debt.

Stoke: What price for a life?

One of the two kidney cancer patients being denied a wonder-drug by North Staffordshire's NHS has died.

Married mother-of-one Carole Buckley had been refused Nexavar treatment on the NHS by North Staffordshire Primary Care Trust (PCT).

The 48-year-old was still waiting for the result of her appeal against the PCT's decision when she died last week.

Mrs Buckley has told The Sentinel in June: "Unless the PCT decides I can have this drug, there is nothing else for me. I find it really scary that my life is in someone else's hands."

News of Mrs Buckley's death has angered fellow kidney cancer sufferer Angelena Buxton who is also being denied Nexavar by the same PCT.

The 56-year-old is paying £3,200 a month for Nexavar herself and has launched the Need Nexavar Now campaign to try to force the PCT's hand.

Angelena, who lives in Baldwins Gate, said: "If Carole could have gone on the drug for a couple of months it might have made all the difference. She has been going all this year without treatment.

"I know the PCT only has so many funds but it should preserve the sanctity of life. That's what doctors swear in their oath but it is not being done.

"Carole was a lovely person. We had spoken lots on the phone. She was frightened but it was the only option. I'm thinking now of her family - her husband and daughter."

After being refused the drug Mrs Buckley, who lived in Scholar Green and had her GP in Kidsgrove, had started pioneering stem-cell transplant treatment at Christie's Hospital, Manchester.

Angelena said: "She was very nervous about going in when I spoke to her three weeks ago. She had made the decision that she couldn't afford Nexavar.

"She had been told it would have been better if she could have gone on Nexavar first but because she couldn't afford it and the PCT wouldn't fund it they brought it forward."

Angelena's sister Gemma Austin, aged 62, of Trentham said: "I'm devastated. I believe she has been condemned to death by the PCT. Why couldn't they have paid for the drug?

"I didn't know her personally but I know what her and her family have gone through.

"What price is there on a life? Even if it didn't suit her the PCT could have let her try."

Nexavar is licensed for use in the UK but no national guidelines for its use have been issued by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice).

How can any MPs seriously be considering gifting the EU billions more pounds a year - a 60% increase in payments - while auditors can't explain where the "majority" of the £3.5bn a year we already hand over has been going for the last twelve years, and while this kind of drug rationing in the NHS is costing lives?

People's lives clearly depend on that money. MPs shouldn't be content to vote it away to wasteful and already lavishly-funded organisations like the EU, or they can expect to pay the price for such irresponsibility come the next election.

Staffordshire: Dementia cases to double in next decade

The number of dementia sufferers in Staffordshire is set to soar by more than half over the next 14 years, reports The Sentinel.

According to research commissioned by the Alzheimer's Society, there are currently 9,537 people with dementia in Staffordshire - 6.8% of the population.

But the study, which was carried out by the London School of Economics and King's College London, estimates there will be 14,785 sufferers in the county by 2021, a rise of 55%.

And the number of younger people developing dementia is expected to rise due to an increase in binge-drinking.

Elaine Ivis, West Midlands area manager of the Alzheimer's Society, said the predicted rise was mainly due to the ageing population.

She said: "Dementia is set to increase by a phenomenal amount in Staffordshire.

"The first thing we need to do is accept this is going to happen. There is still a big stigma about mental health and also about being old."

But some under-65s suffer from dementia and the number is set to increase. At the moment there are 230 under-65s in Staffordshire with dementia. By 2021 this figure is estimated to be 243.

Ms Ivis said the Alzheimer's Society believed more people would suffer from Korsakoff's Syndrome, a brain disorder associated with heavy drinking, in the future because of Britain's binge drinking culture.

She said: "We need to start people thinking about how to tackle this challenge. We are recommending that dementia is made a priority nationally and locally."

So why are some of Staffordshire's MPs considering voting a massive 60% funding increase to the audit-failing EU, while local health services clearly need extra investment to cope with this looming problem?

More needs to be spent both on research into the causes of dementia, and on care and treatment facilities. Not on the wasteful and fraud-ridden European Union, which hasn't had the "majority" of its spending approved by auditors for twelve years in a row.

Find out whether your MP is going to vote in favour of the EU budget deal, and consequently restrict the funding available to local public services.

Stoke: More mental health beds could face axe

More community beds for mentally ill people could be axed in Stoke-on-Trent following the controversial plan to lose eight at a Tunstall unit.

Health officials yesterday gave notice they may next turn their sights on the city's two other mental health resource centres in Longton and Shelton once the beds at the Greenfield unit have gone.

The beds give short-term intensive care which avoids people having to be admitted to the area's main Harplands psychiatric hospital in Hartshill.

But Stoke-on-Trent's NHS funding body, the primary care trust (PCT), wants to use them instead to rehabilitate longer-stay patients from the hospital.

The move will leave the city with just 16 community beds at the Sutherland centre in Longton and the Bennett unit in Shelton - and the PCT failed to give councillors a guarantee that those were safe.

PCT joint senior commissioning director Jane Tipping told the city's health scrutiny commission that bed use was falling because of schemes to support patients in their own homes.

But councillors voiced fears that the number of remaining beds would be too small to cope, especially as the incidence of stress and depression was growing in society.

Adrian Knapper said: "There is no flexibility here. When all 16 beds are full, are patients number 17 and 18 expected to walk the streets?

"And with the Tunstall patients being moved to beds in Shelton and Longton, the relatives and friends will face transport difficulties visiting them."

Hilda Johnson, from Combined Healthcare's patients forum, said: "We are unhappy about the closure of these beds so we would be worried if they started shutting even more besides."

People in Bennett and Sutherland are already worried that they will be discharged to make room for patients from Greenfield."

The Greenfield bed closures - opposed by a petition from staff and patients - were initially part of a cost-cutting programme unveiled last year.

Stoke: Patients slam dirty hospital

The condition of wards, toilets and bathrooms at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire has been criticised by patients in two separate surveys.

One was carried out on behalf of the Healthcare Commission (HC) while the other was from people contacted by the hospital's patients advice services.

The HC - the independent inspection body for the NHS - called for a review of the cleaning contracts at the hospital in the wake of the concerns raised by the survey.

The patients in both surveys also raised concerns about catering at the hospital but described staff as excellent.

The findings were based on the HC survey in which 461 patients out of 850 polled at the Hartshill complex filled in questionnaires, and from 223 people who completed so-called "feedback forms" issued to 40 wards and departments through its patient advice liaison service (PALS).

Stoke: 'Morale low' at job cuts hospital

Morale is low among staff at a debt-hit Staffordshire hospital which has cut 800 jobs, says the Royal College of Nursing.

The BBC reports RCN representative Elaine Twigg saying that NHS cuts in the West Midlands region had been among the biggest in England.

She said: "It makes it very difficult when I speak to others and they say they're having a hard time as well.

The University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust made the cuts in an effort to reduce a £17m deficit.

Ms Twigg, who is attending the RCN conference in Harrogate, added: "I know morale is very low throughout the country, and certainly in our hospital it is very low, so we will wait and see whether this manages to improve things."

The hospital has also closed 145 beds as part of its cost-cutting measures and has said more post closures are possible.

Stoke: Hospital care falling apart claim unions

Union officials are compiling an explosive report they say will expose a "gross deterioration" in patient care at the region's biggest hospital, according to The Sentinel.

Pat Powell, Unison branch secretary at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, is working with other unions there to prepare a dossier of evidence about falling standards of patient care following financial cuts.

The allegations include:

... cuts in hospital cleaning leaving patients vulnerable to infections such as MRSA;

... bed shortages that have forced staff to put adults on a children's ward, and 10 beds into a bay designed for six;

... a lack of staff meaning some patients are unable to leave the ward for scans and treatment;

... cuts to physiotherapy services including the end of the paediatric outpatient service and cystic fibrosis service.

A hospital spokesman said the claims were an inaccurate reflection of the situation.

He added: "Some of the allegations are untrue.Others are based on unsubstantiated anecdote, are exaggerated, do not relate to cost cutting, or reflect best practice."

The allegations come as the Royal College of Nursing today revealed more than 22,300 NHS posts have been lost across the country in the last 18 months, of these 500 are from the University Hospital.

Mrs Powell told Sentinel Sunday the problems have been experienced by union members.

She said: "We know these things are happening and at the moment we are gathering in documentary evidence.

"We are collating the evidence through freedom of information requests to the trust on things we know are happening.

"We will then put it all together into a report."

She said all the health unions involved in NHS Together alliance were involved, including bodies representing doctors, nurses and ancillary staff.

Mark Young, North Staffordshire's regional officer for Amicus, which represents 300 workers at the hospital including laboratory staff, said he was also involved in the report.

He hopes it will show the Government that health service cuts are having a devastating impact on care in North Staffordshire.

He said: "The reality on patient care in Stoke-on-Trent is that patients' health is suffering because of these cuts.

"Patients might not notice their care is suffering, but there are a lot of underlying problems.

If the place isn't so clean because of staffing levels, if the beds aren't properly maintained in wards, if laboratory staff aren't able to turn round samples as quickly, then patient care is suffering.

"We want to show the Department of Health what these problems are. The difficulty we have is that people who work in the NHS have an ethos of public service so we often find that although staff are under greater stress because a colleague has been made redundant or not been replaced, they pick up the extra bit of work. "

Mrs Powell spoke out in a speech at the West Midlands NHS rally in Birmingham last month. In it, she blamed the University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust's decision to cut 1,000 jobs.

Stoke: Diabetics condemn hospital unit closure

Diabetics are fighting a decision to ditch plans for a new hospital specialist unit catering for their illness - reports The Sentinel.

The unit at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire was due to be included in the area's new hospital, to be built in the next five years.

But the scheme has had to be scaled down for financial reasons and the re-drawn plans no longer show a self-contained diabetic care centre.

Leaders of the thousands of local diabetics voiced fears that they will be "left in limbo" because their existing specialist centre is due to close, forcing them to rely on GPs instead.

News of the closure of the so-called Nines Block comes amid a sharp rise in diabetes cases nationally, linked to rising obesity levels.

Sandra Parsons, of the North Staffordshire branch of the charity Diabetes UK, said: "We have been told that the cut-down funding wouldn't cover the cost of a diabetic care centre in the new plans.

"But no-one has told us, or told the specialist nurses we rely on, what will happen after the Nines Block comes down, reportedly in July.

"In GP surgeries, the service is very patchy - some have diabetic clinics but others don't. There have even been cases of our members having to transfer doctors until they can find a practice with specialist clinic.

"Yet provision is now being squeezed at the hospital end, too.

The branch, which has hospital diabetes specialist Dr John Scarpello as its president, has already raised more than 1,000 signatures for a petition of protest and is now trying to enlist MPs into the fight.

Diabetes is a leading cause of blindness. It can also lead to angina, heart failure, strokes, renal failure and amputation.

Figures for 2005/06 showed there are almost 16,000 registered diabetics in Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle, with 60,000 in total in Staffordshire and Shropshire.

Stafford: Trust cuts 150 jobs at hospitals

A hospital trust in Staffordshire has become the latest to announce job cuts in an effort to save costs - reports the BBC.

Mid Staffordshire General Hospitals NHS Trust is to cut more than 150 jobs to make savings of £10m next year.

A spokesman claimed most of the job losses would come from managerial and support services to try to minimise the impact on patient care.

The trust is expected to make a small surplus this year, but needs to make savings in the next financial year. It runs two hospitals - the 404-bed Staffordshire General Hospital in Stafford and the 107-bed Cannock Chase Hospital.

Between them they also serve people in Cannock, east Staffordshire, Sutton Coldfield and north Birmingham.

The spokesman said staff interested in early and voluntary retirement would be asked to come forward, but that some compulsory redundancies may be required.

More than 4,000 job losses have been announced at hospitals across the country over the past few weeks.

Health workers union Unison has said the cuts are bound to have an effect on patient care while the Royal College of Nursing has said morale in the profession is "plummeting".

Earlier this month, North Staffordshire NHS Trust said it needed to shed 1,000 jobs to clear a £30m deficit, while Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital announced 300 jobs would be axed to balance the books.

Similar cuts have also been announced in Shropshire and across England.