NHS in Cheshire and Merseyside takes steps to improve care and help speed up discharge for patients

Preparations for winter are already well underway in the region following the publication earlier this year of the NHS Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plan, a blueprint drawn up to help recover urgent and emergency care services, reduce waiting times and improve patient experience.

Following that plan, services have been put in place across the region that will boost capacity and resilience and build on improvements in ambulance response times and Accident & Emergency (A&E) performance.

NHS England North West Regional Medical Director for Primary Care, Dr Paula Cowan, said:

“Preparations are well under way in the North West as we head into a winter that many expect to be one of the most challenging in NHS history. We are seeing sustained pressure in emergency, primary and community care, with overall higher demand than pre-pandemic, plus the impact of industrial action and the toll that has taken on our hard-working dedicated staff in already busy services.

“Despite all that, we’ve made great progress in the North West already with the introduction of additional multidisciplinary roles in general practice, care transfer hubs, virtual wards and surgical elective hubs, along with the tremendous boost to the North West Ambulance Service of new vehicles they can use to serve our patients this winter.”

Across Cheshire and Merseyside, there are currently around 1,000 people in a hospital bed who no longer need the care a hospital provides. Across the North West, this figure was consistently above 2,200 during last winter and reached as high as 2,400 people at peak times.

Every hospital in the region is now covered by a care transfer hub to enable staff to find the best and quickest discharge options for patients who are medically fit enough to leave, working with teams from across the NHS, social care, housing and voluntary services.

Early results from Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s care transfer hub showed the number of people in beds waiting to go home or into community care placements reduced from 250 to 102 a day, freeing up nearly 150 more beds at its Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge hospitals.

Going into this winter, there are also 400 virtual ward ‘beds’ across Cheshire and Merseyside – increasing to 560 by the end of March 2024 – that will care for patients with frailty, acute respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart failure, and several paediatric conditions.

The introduction of state-of-the-art elective surgical hubs, giving patients faster access to some of the more common surgical procedures such as cataract surgeries and hip replacements, has also helped reduce the backlog of patients waiting for treatment ahead of winter.

The second phase of the multi-million-pound Cheshire and Merseyside Surgical Centre at Clatterbridge Hospital has now opened, with 3,000 elective patients having been treated in phase one in its first year. With two more theatres now opened in phase two of the project, this will increase capacity to treat 6,000 extra elective patients a year.

North West Ambulance Service is also well on its way in ensuring it continues to deliver a high-quality service despite additional winter demands. By Christmas, 75 new paramedics and 32 emergency medical technicians will have joined NWAS, with more due to be in post by March 2024. There will also be 72 new recruits for the Patient Transport Service and 250 new call handlers for the 999 and NHS 111 contact centres.

The service is also increasing the number of clinicians working in its 999 contact centres. There will also be an additional 32 emergency ambulances responding to patients by February, bringing the total operating across the region to 553.

NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Medical Director, Professor Rowan Pritchard-Jones, said:

“The NHS has tried and tested plans to help manage periods of high pressure, and ensuring safe care for patients continues to be our top priority.

“We are working closely with local NHS Trusts and other partners across health and social care to think more innovatively about how we deliver services and make sure that all possible capacity is effectively utilised, in order to help reduce delays to people’s care this winter.

“The public can also play their part this winter by coming forward for the right care when they need it, such as calling 111 or using NHS 111 online to get urgent advice on the best NHS service for their clinical needs, and dialling 999 in life-threatening emergencies.

“Vaccinations are the best protection against becoming seriously ill from both flu and COVID-19 and passing the virus on to others – we urge everyone eligible for COVID- 19 vaccination and the free flu vaccine to take them up as soon as possible to ensure they are fully protected during the winter months.”

For more advice on the things you can do to help yourself stay well in winter, visit: www.cheshireandmerseyside.nhs.uk/your-health/helping-you-stay-well/stay-well-this-winter/