The new unit is due to open ‘within weeks’

THE Whittington Hospital has announced plans to expand its emergency department after a report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) downgraded its rating from “good” to “requires improvement”.

An unannounced inspection of the Archway hospital was carried out in October after safety concerns were raised to the CQC.

The subsequent report outlined that the ward was under “extreme pressure from sustained overcrowding” and was experiencing “delays in admissions, specifically affecting mental health patients”.

Whittington’s urgent care department currently provides treatment to 110,000 sick children and adults each year, despite only having space to cater for approximately half that number.

Like many hospitals across the country, the Whittington has come to rely on “corridor care” to deal with overcrowding, which campaigners argue is “degrading” for the patients who receive it.

But the trust has today (Friday) announced that it will begin work imminently to address issues by opening a new same day emergency care (SDEC) unit next to the emergency department “within weeks”. The unit will treat people who need urgent care but do not need to stay in hospital overnight.

Shirley Franklin, co-chair of the Defend Whittington Hospital Coalition, said that the report’s findings highlighted how the Whittington, like many NHS hospitals, was under-resourced due to service cuts.

Ms Franklin said: “I think it’s good the CQC is investigating issues on the ward, but I also think we need to take a wider lens that these failures are not the fault of the hospital or the people running it. It is that, across the board, healthcare funding is inadequate. The Conser­vative Party cut spending in the NHS year on year, and now the current Labour government is failing to address the problems this has caused.

“Corridor care is an issue that is affecting hospitals across the country, not just the Whittington. And staff at hospitals can’t carry out the care packages that could help to resolve it because there aren’t the resources there to put them in place, and that comes from years of underfunding.”

A key finding of the report showed how failures to address overcrowding were having a particular impact on mental health patients, who were experiencing the longest waits in the hospital.

Ms Franklin said that the mental health care system in the UK is “muddled” and that patients deserve urgent reform and investment.

She told the Tribune: “Mental health care is all muddled and has suffered for years as healthcare professionals prioritised physical health. Islington is an area with very high mental health needs. But because they cut around 100 beds in Camden and Islington Trusts in order to fund more mainstream health, the mental health crisis here and across the country has become tragic.”

Selina Douglas, chief executive of the Whittington Health NHS Trust, said: “We have known for a long time that crowding in our emergency department makes it harder to provide the high quality and dignified care that our patients rightly expect. I want to be clear that this new building won’t give us all of the additional space that we need but it will help to ease crowding in the department whilst we plan for more significant, long-term changes.”