Full Story at The Northumberland Gazette, 22 January 2018
NHS England is publishing data each week which documents how each hospital trust is coping with the winter crisis based on key indicators. Here’s how Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust coped in the week of January 8 to 14. The trust’s beds were 91.2% full on average, well above the recommended safe limit of 85%. In hospitals where more than 85% of beds are occupied, there is a greater risk of patients receiving inadequate care, being placed on an inappropriate ward for their condition, or contracting superbugs such as MRSA, according to the British Medical Association. Occupancy rates have largely stayed the same since the previous week’s report. Of 896 available beds, 817 were in use on average throughout the week. Of these, six were ‘escalation beds’, temporary beds set up in periods of intense pressure. These are sometimes placed in areas not usually used for hospital patients, such as gyms or day care centres. This is largely the same as the previous week.