Daily Insight: Musical beds?

The city of Liverpool has been waiting a very long time for its new hospital.

The new Royal Liverpool is due to finally open later this month, several years late and following multiple delays.

The opening will be cause for huge celebration and relief, although there are increasing concerns about the size of its bed base.

The new facility will have only 640 beds, compared to 685 in the current building. There are around 30 new beds due to open elsewhere in the city, but that’s still a net reduction of about 15 beds.

That doesn’t sound like a huge problem, except that the current hospital is already full.

In an email alert this morning seen by HSJ, medical leaders at the Royal Liverpool Hospital alerted staff to extreme pressures on the site, with ambulances being held outside and “no space” in resuscitation areas. They said the hospital had implemented its “full capacity protocol”.

A spokeswoman for the trust said the care model at the new hospital will enable increased specialist input at the beginning of the patient pathway, which should help reduce admissions.

HSJ readers will have heard that before though.

One vision

Plans to create a new trust for all of an integrated care system’s community and mental health services have sparked fears that one foundation trust could end up dominating the set-up.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board has accepted the recommendation – for there to be a single organisation – of a review into its services and is expected to ratify this at its next board meeting, due in early October. 

The main providers of these services in the patch are Southern Health Foundation Trust and Solent Trust. However, the transaction will also involve Isle of Wight Trust, which is an integrated trust providing mental health, community, acute and ambulance services on the island. 

One local source raised concerns with HSJ  that, because it is the only FT in the area, Southern Health would lead the transaction and could dominate the new organisation, despite its care quality and cultural problems in recent years.