Leicester Royal Infirmary's accident and emergency department 'nearly worst of all'
Leicester Royal Infirmary's accident and emergency department was almost the worst performing in the country during January, according to a new report.
Emergency doctors failed to see and treat 2,620 patients within the four-hour target time set by the Department of Health.
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changes: The LRI's accident and emergency department
Under the rules, 95 per cent of patients must be seen within the time slot – but at the infirmary doctors managed 85.1 per cent.
In a report to directors at Leicester's hospitals board meeting, Jeremy Tozer, interim director of operations, said: "January was the worst performing month to date.
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"As of February 3, the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust was ranked 142 out of 144 acute trusts over the past four weeks, with a performance of 85.1 per cent."
Mr Tozer said the poor performance was down to nearly 500 more patients compared with the same time last year arriving for treatment.
An increase in staff sickness, which meant having to close extra beds, had also impacted on the infirmary's ability to move patients from the A&E department and on to wards.
Mr Tozer said that by the end of March, it was predicted 168,615 patients would have been through A&E in the past year.
This will be 6,647 more than the previous year and represents an increase of 4.2 per cent.
Mr Tozer said work to try to "divert" patients to the nearby urgent care centre had not had a significant effect on reducing the work load in A&E.
However, changes from the start of last week should help improve the time in which patients are seen.
It includes speeding up assessment with the creation of a new joint clinical team.
The number of ward rounds on the rapid assessment, short stay assessment and clinical decisions units have been increased and new patients seen within half an hour.
Mr Tozer said: "In the first week we implemented the changes we achieved 95 per cent performance in A&E on two days. This week has been tough again but the system is proving beneficial to the times patients are being seen."
Leicester's hospitals face penalties of about £700,000 a month for not meeting the 95 per cent target.
However, the Leicester City clinical commissioning group (CCG), which will take on responsibility for running local health services in April, has said it will give the infirmary £150,000 a week for each week it meets the target.
The CCG is also working on a review of ambulance requests from GPs to see if all patients need to go to hospital.
Mr Tozer said: "The impact of this work seems very positive."
Zuffar Haq, of the Leicester Mercury Patients' Panel, said: "The hospital needs to improve its system in A&E so patients are looked after quicker and better."
15 Comments
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by Molly49
Monday, March 04 2013, 12:54PM
“Targets themselves can cause problems - just look at Mid Staffs to see what the consequences are of concentrating on targets - surely it is better that a person is assessed properly before being either discharged or admitted to a ward.”
by stex1
Sunday, March 03 2013, 12:44PM
“Leicester is a growing thriving city with high immigration levels. the A&E has not expanded to cater for this growth, although they have modernised, it is still incapable of dealing with high levels of patients. to many people complain about the staff without having prior knowledge of what pressures they work under. The waiting times (set by the government) for new patients are just not common sense. If it's your or a close relative in A&E with a serious injury, you want the doctor or nurses to concentrate fully, with out worrying about the time constraints....../ Having worked in the A&E I give a suggestion to immediately alleviate this problem and save money at the same time.
All those people who have drunk / self abuse related injury's should be sent to a psychatric unit and charged for their treatment. This suggestion is said "tongue in cheek" to point out that a lot of A&E congestion is related to the times of the pubs and clubs being closed.”
by stex1
Sunday, March 03 2013, 12:43PM
“Leicester is a growing thriving city with high immigration levels. the A&E has not expanded to cater for this growth, although they have modernised, it is still incapable of dealing with high levels of patients. to many people complain about the staff without having prior knowledge of what pressures they work under. The waiting times (set by the government) for new patients are just not common sense. If it's your or a close relative in A&E with a serious injury, you want the doctor or nurses to concentrate fully, with out worrying about the time constraints....../ Having worked in the A&E I give a suggestion to immediately alleviate this problem and save money at the same time.
All those people who have drunk / self abuse related injury's should be sent to a psychatric unit and charged for their treatment. This suggestion is said "tongue in cheek" to point out that a lot of A&E congestion is related to the times of the pubs and clubs being closed.”
by stex1
Sunday, March 03 2013, 12:43PM
“Leicester is a growing thriving city with high immigration levels. the A&E has not expanded to cater for this growth, although they have modernised, it is still incapable of dealing with high levels of patients. to many people complain about the staff without having prior knowledge of what pressures they work under. The waiting times (set by the government) for new patients are just not common sense. If it's your or a close relative in A&E with a serious injury, you want the doctor or nurses to concentrate fully, with out worrying about the time constraints....../ Having worked in the A&E I give a suggestion to immediately alleviate this problem and save money at the same time.
All those people who have drunk / self abuse related injury's should be sent to a psychatric unit and charged for their treatment. This suggestion is said "tongue in cheek" to point out that a lot of A&E congestion is related to the times of the pubs and clubs being closed.”
by PLYMFOX01
Sunday, March 03 2013, 12:22PM
“The A & E at the LRI isnt the best in the world, it feels old, in need of sprucing up and can be quite intimidating. The staff do their best under very difficult circumstances.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, what is the point in fining the department for failing to meet their targets? No doubt this money would come out of the patient care budget which is scandalous.Also Leicestershire could do with another A & E dept, how about Glenfield Hospital? It neednt be on as large a scale but it would take some of the pressure off the LRI, and as hospitals go Glenfield is a far better hospital.”
by IAmAwake
Sunday, March 03 2013, 9:42AM
“I was unfortunate to accompany someone to LRI a&e a while back. The place was filthy. There were used syringes and blood on the floor of the cubicle and blood smeared over the sink and tap. The floors were dirty and looked like they hadn't been cleaned for some time.”
by chandramouli
Saturday, March 02 2013, 11:40PM
“The Result of Hindle/MLL mismanagement of a once promising institution is coming home to roost
1)Fifty percent of staff would not admit their own relatives in this hospital
2)The worst a&E.Talking about spending money.Just a few years ago the trust had imported a professor and spend millions claiming they have set right all the problems in the A&E
3)AS for MR Haq he has been saying -They should improve \for the last 10 years.I am sure the trust is quacking in its boots!”
by LikeItaLot
Saturday, March 02 2013, 10:00PM
“aristoc, don't forget to add the number of red arrows you got to the growing number of green to give you a full total.”
by oldjohn
Saturday, March 02 2013, 5:36PM
“Ari..may be too many pen pushers have nothing better to do.Who knows best?Pen pushers or real nurses and doctors?”
by C_G_Lee
Saturday, March 02 2013, 5:31PM
“I suppose the answer to this will be to fine the trust and make matters even worse. There needs to be some joined up thinking here, rather than to castigate those working for the trust and impose pointless penalties.”