NHS emergency department statistics to be re-checked by regulator
NHS Improvement will review figures following BBC investigation into changes in calculation...
23 Jan 2018
News
Patients admitted to virtual ward to avoid target breach, claims whistleblower
Staff at a hospital admitted patients to a ‘virtual ward’ to avoid breaching the four-hour emergency department target, a whistleblower has claimed.
Staff at a hospital admitted patients to a ‘virtual ward’ to avoid breaching the four-hour emergency department target, a whistleblower has claimed.
admitting emergency department patients to a ward that did not exist. Picture: PA News
They claimed that patients at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals were kept in accident and emergency, but were recorded as being admitted to a ward that did not exist.
An investigation regarding the claims, carried out by Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust, found that breaches of the target may have been under-reported.
The report also found some patients whose recorded admission time did not match the time they were actually moved.
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals has not hit the four-hour target since at least the beginning of 2013, the Health Service Journal reported.
No evidence of fraud
In a statement, the trust said investigations found cases of ‘poor processes and recording’ but no evidence of any deliberate attempts by staff to ‘defraud or game the system’.
A former staff member who worked in the trust’s accident and emergency department said the virtual Emergency Department Unit (EDU) was nicknamed a ‘breach avoidance unit’.
They also said staff felt under pressure from managers to æfalsify records for the four-hour target’, and nurses did not want trust managers ‘harassing’ them over four-hour breaches.
A trust spokesperson said the trust did not recognise these claims and refuted them.
Not good enough
Trust chair Caragh Merrick said: ‘We can confirm that these alleged practices are not happening today and that previous investigations show that virtual EDU was a language issue rather than a policy initiative.
‘Since joining the trust in September, I have regularly acknowledged that we need to change some aspects of the way we operate, and also the way we engage and communicate with patients, public and stakeholders.
‘We are a very challenged trust and our performance against a number of targets and indicators hasn’t been, and isn’t, good enough.’
Ms Merrick added that a different culture would be introduced at the trust, with a new permanent leadership team in place.
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