The NHS’s network of intensive care units is “at its limits” because they are overwhelmed by staff shortages and the sheer number of patients needing life-or-death care, senior doctors are warning in an unprecedented intervention.
Intensive care units (ICUs) are becoming so full that patient safety is increasingly at risk because life-saving operations – including heart, abdominal and neurosurgery – are having to be delayed, the leaders of the specialist doctors who staff the units have told the Guardian.
“Intensive care is at its limits in terms of capacity and struggles to maintain adequate staffing levels,” said Dr Carl Waldmann, the dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (FICM).
“It is important that bed occupancy rates do not exceed 85% in order to ensure there is capacity for emergencies. The reality is that many units are quickly reaching 100% capacity whenever there is excessive hospital activity,” he added.
The Guardian can reveal that, in a stark example of the growing problems, Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS trust last week ran out of intensive care beds at its two hospitals and was struggling to provide normal care to the many patients needing treatment for life-or-death conditions.
Full story in The Guardian 29 January 2017