Measures are being put in place to ease pressure on services at Colchester Hospital after it declared a “major incident” last week.
Following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) last Wednesday, the hospital trust announced that it was operating over capacity.
The CQC raised concerns over the lack of available beds in the hospital’s accident and emergency departments and concluded that the department was struggling with “unprecedented demand”.
The BBC reported that one incident involved a patient’s note giving details on an invasive procedure that had been carried out when the patient was not able to give their consent. However, whilst confirming that it raised a “small number of safeguarding concerns” at the hospital, the CQC is refraining from giving any more information on these issues.
Interim chief executive at the hospital, Dr Lucy Moore said the focus was on “discharging patients.”
In the last three days 29 elective operations have been postponed “as a very last resort”, a hospital spokesperson said. Government statistics show that, on average, one such operation is usually cancelled at the hospital every working day.
Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester Sir Bob Russell said the hospital’s decision to declare a major incident was “very worrying”.
“We’ve had a year, eighteen months of problems at Colchester General Hospital, the former chief executive, chairman and numerous members of the board have all gone, there’s a new team in there and I’m hoping that they will turn it around.
“There’s no criticism here by the way of the front-line medical staff and support staff, the criticism I have is the management historically and I’m just hoping the new management team are going to sort it out, but clearly this is very worrying.”
It is thought that the situation will be ongoing for the rest of this week and patients are being asked to avoid going into A&E unless they are suffering with a “serious or life-threatening condition”.