Swansea Bay University Health Board Business Continuity Announcement

Posted by: richardphillips - Posted on:

The Swansea Bay University Health Board (SBUHB) has released the following announcement to practices regarding capacity issues and increased demands. We are presenting this document as is for information purposes.

SBUHB ESCALATION LEVEL: BUSINESS CONTINUITY INCIDENT

The Health Board is experiencing unprecedented pressures across all sites and as such has had to escalate from level 4 status to invoke their Business Continuity Plan. The Welsh Ambulance Service Trust (WAST) have now also declared Business Continuity due to the knock on effect and unprecedented pressures across all Health Board sites in Wales. There is a large back log of ambulances outside Morriston ED with crews unable to offload patients due to lack of capacity within the department/building. This is having a knock-on effect for all other secondary care sites with minimum patient movement being seen across SBUHB. Long delays are being seen for ambulance response within the community. Community services have been called upon to increase the volume of discharges where appropriate/possible to support greater care at home. The pressure seen across Primary Care services has also been escalated and is recognised due to general winter pressures in addition to the increased demand associated with Scarlet Fever/iGAS (invasive Group A Streptococcal presentation). As part of this escalation process General Practice are asked to please consider the following;

  • Deferred Referral: Where secondary care input is necessary but not urgent for today please consider asking patients to delay attendance at secondary care sites and re-assess patients later in he day where possible/appropriate.
  • Alternative Treatment Centres: Please consider the appropriateness of the Minor Injury Unit at NPTH or referrals to the Acute GP Unit for those patients able to be seen in these services.
  • Referral Options: Please utilise the Urgent Primary Care Centre and Community Pharmacy service wherever possible for appropriate patients.
  • Increased triage/home visit access: Can I urge all practices who are able to facilitate an increased urgent care/triage/home visit service to implement as best as possible today to help minimise the number of 999 calls or presentations to ED.
  • Patient education: Please can you promote he Choose Well scheme and symptom sorter tools on the 111 NHS Wales website. Please also ensure patients are aware of the 111/Out of Hours service when practices are closed during evenings and overnight to try and minimise inappropriate presentations at ED where possible.
  • Patient communication: Can I ask for this information to be widely disseminated to all practice staff and patients to ensure all are aware of the critical situation our secondary care services are currently experiencing.

    With my utmost thanks and appreciation for your help and understanding in this matter.