Frimley missed A&E target in Feb but hit quarter

In 2013-14 so far there has a 6% increase in total emergency admissions, but an 8% increase in medical admissions – equating to an additional 38 patients a week requiring a bed – according to latest board papers from April.

The trust said it had “struggled to cope with this increase all year”.

Since Christmas pressure on bed capacity caused by extra admissions has been “exacerbated by difficulties with discharging patients in a timely manner”. As a result, emergency length of stay has “increased dramatically which has had a knock-on impact” on patient flow through A&E.

In order to address these pressures the trust said it had opened additional beds at short notice and scheduled extra clinical staff to work at peak times.

“These measures have led to an improvement in A&E performance such that the 95% target was achieved in March and for the quarter (January to March) as a whole,” the board was told.