December 14, 2022 5.30 pm This story is over 25 months old

Lincolnshire “no longer shocked” by healthcare delays, hospital boss admits

But he agrees they shouldn’t be tolerated

The chief executive of Lincolnshire’s hospitals says people are “no longer shocked” by discharge delays or long ambulance waits, and that issues with healthcare have been “normalised”.

The trust which runs the county’s facilities is currently running a series of projects under the “Breaking the Cycle” umbrella to speed up the discharge of medically fit patients in order to clear the backlog across the system, from the front door and the back of ambulances.

They include a recently launched scheme to use care homes for “Active Recovery Beds” to help the rehabilitation of patients between being discharged and going home.

Lincolnshire County Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday had an update from Chief Executive Andrew Morgan and other members of the trust.

During discussions, Councillor Lucille Hague said she had been part of a time looking to improve discharges nearly a decade ago.

“I spent two years on that, going down three times a year, and I have to say nothing has improved,” she said.

Mr Morgan told councillors: “This doesn’t surprise me, but slightly saddens or disappoints me. I suppose that this is a long-running topic.

“Rightly, or wrongly, I say on occasion that we’ve normalised it I think. We’ve gotten used to it being as it is, and are no longer shocked in terms of both discharge delays but also sadly some of the waits that we have in A&E departments across the country.”

He said, however, that his approach was to “absolutely be shocked by some of the waits… because they shouldn’t be acceptable or tolerated”.

Mr Morgan used the meeting to again apologise to Lincolnshire residents, saying there was no finger pointing and that he was including his own trust’s internal processes.

“We know that people waiting too long in A&E departments, too long in overcrowded emergency departments, can cause harm to people,” he said.

“I’m really clear and upfront with people: we have experienced some unacceptable waits in our A&E departments and some other acceptable waits to unload ambulances.”

He added that work with partners was also needed to support outside the hospital arena.

Councillors were told, however, that feedback from the latest measures was positive and further investment was taking place including a revamp of discharge lounges, new pharmacy technicians and additional transport out from discharge.

Multi-agency discharge events were also taking place on a regular basis to ensure patients were flowing through the system better.

Staff had been told to view discharges as just as important as active care.

Mr Morgan said the emphasis was on self-care or attending alternatives such as pharmacies, however, he acknowledged GP colleagues are “really, really busy” too.


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