Leaked recording of ‘scared’ CEO says major hospital ‘ceasing to function’

Cambridge University Hospitals Foundation Trust boss Roland Sinker warned staff this week that patients could be sent to hospitals in Birmingham or London if it cannot tackle an ongoing bed crisis.

Speaking at an internal meeting which was recorded on Zoom and then leaked to local media, Mr Sinker reportedly said: “You’d have to be asleep to not realise the profound nature of the crisis we’re in….

“I came here in 2015 and we were rated inadequate by the CQC. We had a £90m deficit… I have to say, I’m much more anxious and scared now than I was then.”

HSJ has verified that the comments, first reported by the Cambridge Independent, are accurate.

He told staff his words were “a call to arms” and that without tackling the challenge faced by the trust’s main Addenbrooke’s hospital site, “we’re going to have to think about a plan B”.

“The plan B for us is effectively Cambridge University Hospitals, which has been around for 250 years, thinking about restricting access to care.”

Mr Sinker is a well-regarded trust leader who is not generally outspoken, despite having overseen the trust through some challenging periods since taking charge in 2015. Many staff are understood to have welcomed the leak of the comments, such is the level of concern about the trust’s predicament.

He reportedly continued: “The sorts of cases that we’re having to cancel at the moment, because of lack of beds, are the sorts of cases we would never imagined cancelling. And we’re doing it day after day at the moment.

“So, we could barely cope before covid…150 beds out of 900 [out of action]… this is ceasing to function as a hospital.”

“It’s lovely that a ward is going to open next week. We’re not going to be able to accommodate covid, emergency, elective, regional, specialist, national care, are we? The maths just doesn’t work.”

“This isn’t an aggressive thing, it’s a call to arms. That’s going to go on during the course of this week and into next week and through the following weeks to tackle the challenge… Otherwise, we’re going to have to think about a plan B”, he said.

He added: “It’s lovely that beds are opening – but unless there’s a change in the way that we’re working as an organisation and that’s no criticism to the brilliance of everybody every day, but unless we put away all the things that we currently do and think how can we all lean into this challenge – we’re in real trouble.”

This afternoon Mr Sinker sent out an email to all staff in which he sought to reassure them that while “it is tough at the moment and we’re asking a lot of you this winter” that additional capacity and staff were “in the pipeline”.

The note, seen by HSJ, said: “We have recruited significant numbers of additional staff across many professions, especially in nursing. We have a strong pipeline for recruitment and are pushing to return to our very healthy pre-Covid vacancy rate of 4 per cent compared with our current rate of 8 per cent.

“For all of our staff we’re focused on welfare and experience and are investing in rest and relaxation areas, the availability of quality food options and rewarding and recognising efforts, for example by awarding the covid star to our workforce along with a recognition payment of £100. There is more to do but we are working towards a really positive picture of staffing levels as we forecast the numbers for next year.”

It added: “We are being supported by NHS England and Improvement to open an additional 120 beds on the Addenbrooke’s site to help with the recovery from the covid pandemic. While we opened 20 beds some months ago, we are now focused on progressing the 40-bed facility on the land opposite the Rosie Hospital where we plan to open an elective surgery unit.

“We are also pushing forward with an additional 56 beds in a two-storey block opposite the clinical research centre in which we can care for medical patients to decompress the hospital and enable refurbishments of the main site to take place. These developments will make a big difference when they open and will enable us to improve patient care and the staff experience.”

A trust spokeswoman said: “Due to a recent rise in patients with covid being treated at Addenbrooke’s, the hospital is under extreme pressure and is calling for all those in our community to pull together to try and reduce infection rates.

“We are managing the needs of covid patients while striving to deliver surgical, outpatients, diagnostic and emergency care at the same rate or even higher than before covid-19.”

The trust asked local residents to  “please help us by getting your flu and covid vaccinations, and maintain hand hygiene, social distancing and mask-wearing in crowded places”.