YEOVIL NEWS: Hospital battling against high influx of patients

YEOVIL District Hospital has said it is working “extremely hard” to ensure that a surge in demand for services DOES NOT put patient care in jeopardy.

The hospital was deemed to be in a state of Black Alert this week having seen an unprecedented influx of patients put huge strain on staff and resources.

But despite the extra pressures placed on the hospital, it is trying to cope and continue running as smoothly as possible.

A hospital spokesman said: “An exceptional number of patients have attended and been admitted to our hospital in recent weeks, the vast majority requiring immediate treatment. This has led to our hospital declaring black escalation status.

“Black escalation is an indication to the rest of the health and care community that we are under real pressure and that the demand on our organisation exceeds our capacity and the number of beds we have available.

“We anticipate this demand to be sustained for at least 24 hours and we are working very closely with other parts of the system to request their support by only referring in patients when absolutely necessary and by making capacity available to receive patients who are ready to be discharged into the community or home.”

The hospital has been forced to cancel some “planned, non-emergency appointments” and re-book them for another day once the current Black Alert has passed.

“It is vital that our hospital has the capacity to continue providing our most vulnerable, unwell patients with the urgent, potentially life-saving treatment they need and we therefore have had to take the difficult but necessary decision to postpone some planned, non-emergency appointments,” added the spokesman.

“The postponement of any planned appointment is never taken lightly, and is always done on a case-by-case basis. We will always make direct contact with affected patients to rearrange these appointments and would like to thank them for their understanding.

“Our staff are working extremely hard to ensure this current situation does not affect patients any more that absolutely necessary and we are grateful to them for taking steps such as postponing training and other non-clinical duties to help their colleagues and the hospital as a whole.”

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