One of the difficulties in looking at the stats for Heartlands hospital is that they include figures for Solihull, Heartlands and Good Hope.
I have obtained copies of the most recent statistics about A&E and put them in the window of my office.
What they demonstrate is that the primary concern relates to Good Hope. I had a number of conversations about this last week and the hospital is putting in some serious effort into resolving this.
Personally I have only experienced A&E at Heartlands and have not been to A&E at Solihull or Good Hope although I have visited patients at Solihull on a number of occasions.
It is important to have a good A&E service, but there are always challenges as to demand particularly with the complications now in the health service.
I have obtained copies of the most recent statistics about A&E and put them in the window of my office.
What they demonstrate is that the primary concern relates to Good Hope. I had a number of conversations about this last week and the hospital is putting in some serious effort into resolving this.
Personally I have only experienced A&E at Heartlands and have not been to A&E at Solihull or Good Hope although I have visited patients at Solihull on a number of occasions.
It is important to have a good A&E service, but there are always challenges as to demand particularly with the complications now in the health service.
Comments
we could not park unless charged a fee, therefore i had to cancel the appointment whilst at the reception.
Surely,this discrminates who should be able to obtain the blue badge disability facility.
I've long felt (and been backed up by friends in the medical profession) that the biggest problem for A&E is the drive for public sector financial efficiency. A key factor you need for financial efficiency is good predictability of demand, ideally a steady demand, so you can be sure you have the right level of resources to provide the service required and no more (no slack). A&E doesn't work like that. Whilst you can predict that demand will usually be higher Friday night than Tuesday afternoon that doesn't mean you won't get a big RTA at 17:30 on Tuesday that puts demand at several Fridays rolled into one.
Fast food restaurants have a similar problem as demand peaks and troughs during the day. The thing is, if I have to wait an extra 5 minutes for my Colonel's Meal with Pepsi the worst that happens is I get annoyed. Having to wait an extra 5 minutes whilst coding with a torn artery (beacuase the nearer hospital has closed or is too bvusy) has much more serious an impact.
Stephen
I am not aware of any proposals to remove A&E from Solihull.