3 April 2018
The Trust that runs Shropshire’s two acute hospitals are to invest in more junior doctors to support the demands on our medical wards and improve 24-hour cover at both Emergency Departments.
Simon Wright, Chief Executive at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) today revealed funding for an additional 30 junior doctors over the next two years to improve staffing levels at The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) and the Princess Royal Hospital (PRH) in Telford.
The announcement follows discussions between senior members of staff, including doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, reflecting upon the demands of this winter, and to try to ensure contingency plans for the overnight closure of PRH A&E don’t have to be actioned.
Simon said: “This commitment further enhances our ambition to build new services and ensure our existing ones remain in our county. This will also improve the health outcomes for our population and introduce more jobs and training opportunities through extending our apprentice schemes.
“By increasing our workforce we expect to see improved patient outcomes, better patient flow, two sustainable Emergency Departments and a better environment for our patients, their families and our staff.
“The junior doctors will work on the rota so we can have approximately six per medical ward over 24-hours.”
Dr Kevin Eardley, Medical Director for Unscheduled Care at SaTH, agrees: “Increasing our workforce will improve quality and safety, reduce length of stay, create empty beds and allow for more effective weekend working.
“At the moment demand is exceeding our capacity, both in terms of physical space to care for patients and in terms of workforce capacity to manage the demand, and as a result experience internal inefficiencies, and quality, safety and flow becomes compromised. This is reflected in high bed occupancy rates, high length of stay, and poor access to emergency services, and workforce costs are also associated as we have to employ more agency staff and open escalation wards.
“Although difficult to quantify the impact of increasing the workforce, we know that a lack of medical workforce is a significant barrier when trying to successfully implement of initiatives to improve patient flow. By allowing these initiatives to flourish we should expect reductions in length of stay, the freeing up of hospital beds and improvements in our Emergency Department performance figures.”