Agenda item

The Chairman invited thefollowing to thetable:

·         Dr Kola Akinlabi - Clinical lead for Long Covid, Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust (Joined virtually)

·         Deborah Sanders - Chief Executive, Barnet Hospital

Dr Akinlabi updated the Committee on data surrounding Long Covid and the number of cases in Barnet. Dr Akinlabi agreed to circulate his presentation following the meeting which would be published alongside the Agenda papers. Members enquired whether Barnet had more cases than any of the other five North Central London boroughs because it has the largest population, or whether the number of cases is in proportion to its population. Dr Akinlabi advised he would circulate the answer via email.

Deborah Sanders provided an update on the recovery of services which had been suspended due to the pandemic. She informed the Committee that there were currently 13 members of staff at Barnet Hospital off sick due to Long Covid and that various support measures had been put in place to assist these individuals.

She explained that over the last 18 months there had been a significant increase in the waiting list for several services and that the priority now was to recover and reduce this list as quickly as possible. During the first phase of the pandemic, most elective work had been halted, apart from cancer treatment, as the pandemic had resulted in the hospital being unable to deal with elective work as well as caring for Covid patients. Many outpatient and theatre staff were redeployed to Intensive Care Units during this time. During the summer, several services began to be restored with the Royal College of Surgeons’ priority guidance being used to establish the order in which services should be re-opened. New pathways for services had been set up to ensure they were Covid secure. The second wave of the pandemic last winter did start to have some impact on the gains that had been made in the summer however, during the third wave, services continued and numbers on the waiting list had reduced since April 2021.

Deborah Sanders informed that Committee that approximately 9,500 patients had waited more than a year, which was very worrying, and it was the hospital’s top priority to keep reducing this number. Some services had been more affected than others including ear, nose and throat, trauma orthopaedics and ophthalmology.

The Chairman raised concerns about long queues being experienced at Barnet Hospital and that residents had reported that some security staff had been unhelpful and off-hand as well as many patients having to stand for some time queuing in the car park because A&E was full. Deborah Sanders replied that due to capacity issues and the need to keep the Emergency Department Covid secure, there had been times when patients had needed to wait outside. She said that a second entrance had now been opened, as well as a second waiting room. However, due to staff shortages, the hospital was not always able to open the second waiting room. She said the security guards had been reminded of the need to provide good customer services and she hoped there would be no further reports of unhelpful behaviour in future. There was a focus on recruiting more Emergency Department staff, with 35 new nurses in the pipeline. Avoidance of overcrowding in the Emergency Departments was important and currently 150 patients could be accommodated at any one time in Urgent Care and A&E, but this was at the top of what could be accommodated within Covid secure guidelines. The A&E Department had been designed to accommodate 275 patients a day whereas 487 people had attended A&E on the previous day, 11 October, with 49 being admitted onto the Wards.

The Chairman also raised a concern on behalf of residents who had experienced an issue whereby their appointments had disappeared from the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system. She asked what had caused this and what had been done to resolve the situation. Deborah Sanders explained that the new EPR system had gone live around 8 October and that this had involved the transfer of all patients’ records from the old system to the new one. Tests were conducted before the go live date which indicated that not all patients’ records were seamlessly transferring over, so the hospital was aware it was an issue that needed to be addressed. To resolve this, 35 additional people were recruited to ensure all records that needed to be inputted manually would be done and a hotline was set up to deal with any patients who turned up for appointments but their records could not be found on the system. She advised that manual records were uploaded in chronological order so that those needing to be seen first would be ready on the new system. All records would be completed within the next 2 to 3 weeks and floor walkers and super users had been trained up to aid staff in using the new EPR system.

A Member noted that their recent trips to the Royal Free with a family member had been impressive. They had been seen quickly with hardly any waiting and the service was comparable to that of a private hospital. The Member stressed that the same processes needed to be embedded at Barnet Hospital to improve the service and care for patients. Deborah Sanders agreed that conversations needed to be had about how to put the same investment into Barnet Hospital.

A Member raised concerns about the level of pressure and work being experienced by staff and how this might be having a negative effect on patient care. Deborah Sanders explained that staff shortages were an everyday battle and that a balance had to be met each day to ensure areas were suitably covered. She said that staffing the Intensive Care Unit was often the trickiest, as there was far less willingness to work there now. She said that the hospital was working hard on both retention and recruitment initiatives with overseas recruitment being the NHS’s primary campaign currently, whilst they waited for new nurses in the UK to be trained and qualified. She also advised that there were much better wellbeing offers in place for staff than before the pandemic. 

RESOLVED that the Committee noted the verbal updates.