A Wakefield hospital is to expand its emergency care unit to cope with the fallout from the potential closure of services at two local hospitals.
Bosses at Pinderfields Hospital says there will be expanding the hospital’s emergency care centre to cope with the extra influx of patients when the A&E department at Dewsbury District Hospital (DDH) closes.
And chiefs at Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust (MYHT), which runs Pinderfields and DDH, says they are preparing for the potential closure of Huddersfield Royal Infirmary’s (HRI) A&E.
MYHT Trust Director of Operations, Kevin Oxley, said: “Under the reconfiguration, the Emergency Department at Pinderfields will be increased in size.
“We are working closely together with Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust and the Yorkshire Ambulance Service to understand the impact of the changes that are proposed for Calderdale and Huddersfield after 2021.”
Dr Steve Ollerton questioned by #HandsOffHRI campaigners
Pinderfields is currently struggling to cope with the numbers its A&E currently receives.
According to information obtained by Freedom of Information, Pinderfields recorded 2,207 ambulance handover breaches between January 1, 2015, and February 25, 2016.
Patients arriving at the Pinderfields’ A&E must be checked in within 15 minutes of arriving by ambulance, according to a target set by MYHT.
If the handover time exceeds 15 minutes because, for example, there are insufficient beds or medical staff, a breach is recorded.
The amount of patients Pinderfields A&E receives is expected to increase by 28% once DDH’s A&E is downgraded to an urgent care centre.
And the influx is expected to increase further if HRI’s A&E closes under Right Care Right Time Right Place.
The plan will also see emergency care centralised at Calderdale Royal Hospital (CRH), Halifax.
A Huddersfield couple who made a tragic visit to Pinderfields on a Monday night, last month, said the hospital’s A&E department was so busy it resembled a scene of ‘Armageddon’.
Howard and Isabel Pugh, from Fenay Bridge, were in the department after Isabel’s father, Andrew, became ill and later died at the hospital.
While Andrew, 70, was treated straight away Howard and Isabel say there were shocked by the number of people in both the walk-in and stretcher cases waiting rooms.
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Mr Pugh said: “We have no complaints about the care he received.”
But Mr Pugh added: “It was absolutely manic – I’ve never seen anything like it. It looked like something from a disaster movie.
“The waiting room was completely full and people were standing around the walls.
“We went through the double doors to the ambulance and stretcher waiting room and they were ambulance workers leaning against the walls and patients on stretchers waiting to be seen.
“It was like Armageddon.”
If HRI’s A&E closes emergency cases occurring west of Huddersfield, such as Lepton and Grange Moor, may be taken to Pinderfields.
