Birmingham Children's Hospital can't cope with demand - report
Birmingham Children’s Hospital is failing to cope with high numbers of patients, turning away desperately ill children in a bed and management crisis, an investigation has revealed.
The Foundation Hospital Trust can’t cope with a surge in demand with too few beds, cancelled operations, poor working procedures for staff and poor planning of services, an independent Healthcare Commission report found.
Theatre staff were also unable to identify surgical equipment and care was ruled as being below standard, particularly in speciality areas such as renal and liver transplants, neurosurgery and cardiac services.
Concerns were still being raised last month including fears for patient safety after a brain surgeon was handed incorrect instruments and his hand was jolted by an untrained theatre nurse during a lifesaving procedure.
The report comes weeks after trust chief executive Paul O’Connor resigned. The commission has now made a 12 point recommendation plan to make the hospital improve.
Surgeons from Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Edgbaston, first raised concerns in January last year, but serious issues were not rapidly addressed and a report by Birmingham primary care trusts was not passed on to board members of Monitor, the overseeing body of foundation trusts and the Children’s Hospital.
Children’s Hospital bosses told investigators at least 70 children a month had to be redirected to other hospitals, travelling further away from home for treatment, with numbers of cancelled admissions due to lack of beds rising in the past year.
The Commission found that bed shortages causing delays was a particular concern for liver disease patients needing urgent treatment.
Parents Ayaz and Sophie Ahmed, whose daughter Alesha died at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, said they were not surprised by the findings as they saw the hospital managed “appallingly” with staff unaware of procedures and a two week delay in getting their baby into intensive care.
Anna Walker, the commission’s chief executive, said the hospital had been struggling with “very real problems with its ability to meet demands for the service”.
“The response to safety concerns has been slower than ideal. It is deeply concerning that serious issues were raised but not properly or rapidly addressed over several months.
“While we have no evidence of serious incidents causing harm to patients, the standard of care has not been as good as it should have been in some cases.
“We were also concerned that the Children’s Hospital and University Hospital Birmingham Trust (UHB) had not communicated as effectively as they could since concerns were first raised by UHB consultants in the first half of 2008. This needs to change on behalf of patients.”
The 220-bed trust, which treated 140,000 patients in 2007/08 is one of only four specialist children’s hospitals in England. It admitted more than 2,000 extra patients in the first six months of 2008 than the same period the previous year.
The trust also reported a rise in the number of cancelled admissions due to no beds being available on the wards, from 19.4 per cent of breaches on one day in 2007/08 to 28.4 per cent in 2008/09.
Birmingham health scrutiny chairman, Coun Deirdre Alden, was critical of the trust blaming patient choice for the rise in demand.
“Every hospital is having to cope with increasing demand and they should have seen this extra pressure coming and had better plans to cope,” she said.
“People think of it as a hospital for Birmingham, but it isn’t, it is for a much wider area. This isn’t down to one person at the top and the Children’s Hospital has now got to prove to everyone that it is alright and things have changed.”
