Hospital staff’s daily struggle over waiting time targets

Jan 22 2009 by Margaret Shaw, Hamilton Advertiser

I WRITE in relation to the article in the Advertiser’s January 8, 2008, issue regarding MSP Michael McMahon’s complaints about the timescale patients have to wait for a bed after they have been admitted to hospital.

As an employee of the NHS and working on the frontline at Wishaw General Hospital, I witness the daily struggle the staff have trying to place patients into beds from the Accident and Emergency department.

The four-hour waiting time from hospital door to bed was introduced by the government to protect the patient, but at busy times it really can’t be used correctly. After the four hours have passed, the patient is said to have been ‘breached’; this is the new word in the NHS.

The stress this has caused in the whole hospital is unbelievable. Senior staff have been threatened with disciplinary action because of the amount of patients ‘breaching’ the four-hour target.

I see first hand how well the staff work in these units; they give more than 100 per cent.

Managers are feeling the pressure, as every day this year there have been breaches and even today it has led to patients being put into treatment rooms. Screens are then erected between each one. This is all about making statistics look good.

It would probably be more helpful if instead of shouting at staff about targets, managers put on aprons and helped the staff. Then they would see exactly how they work as a team to keep our hospitals running.

Name and address supplied.