Concerns over patient care have been raised by new figures revealing Southport and Ormskirk NHS Trust exceeded its safe bed occupancy targets for nearly the whole of last month.
Latest NHS statistics show that in the four week period from December 3rd, Southport and Ormskirk NHS Trust failed the safe level targets for 27 of the 28 days, or 96 per cent of the time.
Hospitals are expected to ensure that no more than 85 per cent of beds area occupied on a given day.
Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Southport, Liz Savage, responding to the figures, said:
“Last year we issued warnings about the problems Southport Hospital and patients were enduring which the local Tory MP dismissed as ‘scaremongering’.”
“Then the stories emerged of patients waiting for hours for treatment in A&E and a consultant there was one of the 68 who felt compelled to write to Theresa May warning that the system was on the verge of collapse. Now, here we are again looking at yet more problems.”
“The people of Southport and beyond deserve so much better than this. Hospital staff are doing all they can but the trust is hampered by vacancies and struggling under a huge £29m deficit thanks to this government.”
“Tory plans have put units across the country at risk; beds are cut; over 40,000 nursing positions are left unfilled, and its patients and staff are suffering as a result. This is the legacy of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act implemented by the Conservatives and their Lib Dem allies.”
“Labour created the NHS and we will ensure real care is given back to it.”
Across England, NHS New Year performance statistics showed that many hospitals remain dangerously overcrowded.
Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary, responding to the latest national weekly winter data, said:
“The New Year performance statistics reveal an NHS under considerable strain this winter after years of financial squeeze, chronic staff shortages and swingeing cuts to social care provision.
“Thanks to the efforts of NHS staff who again have shown extraordinary effort, professionalism, leadership and dedication, services are not quite as bad at this point as last year.
“But let’s be under no illusion: hospitals remain dangerously overcrowded, nearly 40,000 patients have had to wait in backed up ambulances so far this winter, while 54,000 sick patients endured waits of over four hours in November and 12-hour breaches more than doubled compared with last November.
“This is still unacceptably far from the standards expected, adding up to a winter of misery for patients and their families.
“In the coming days ministers must outline a credible plan to both restore standards of patient care where constitutional targets are met, while recruiting and training the staff our NHS now desperately and so obviously needs.”
OTS News on Social Media