The hospital has worked to help patients in all of those situations and has managed to reduce its average length of bed stay by one day over the past year, but with increasing numbers of patients each day Ms Walker says it is hard to keep up.
“We've seen patients extended in an A&E for a long time, a really long time sometimes; we’ve seen higher numbers of patients needing services like mental health in A&E; we've seen an increase in children in A&E from respiratory illness; and we've had a really difficult time with flu.
Professor Julian Redhead, NHS national clinical director for urgent and emergency care says: “The twin pressures of winter viruses and problems discharging patients means hospitals are close to full – even as more beds have been opened to manage the increased demand.”.
On Wednesday, nearly 450 patients streamed through the hospital’s A&E department, and staff in Thursday’s morning huddle were warned a further 424 were expected through the doors that day, keeping the heat on an already stretched department.
Ms Walker says a high number of people they treat are homeless or in temporary accommodation, and they’ve seen an increase in people waiting for nursing home and residential care placements over winter meaning they often have nowhere to be discharged to.
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