The latest figures on how winter pressures are affecting hospitals show Great Western Hospital is still having to cope with sufferers of norovirus – the winter vomiting bug that closed Marlborough’s Castle & Ball Hotel for a few days last week.
In the week January 23-29 GWH lost 120 bed days to norovirus. That is down 24 on the previous week, but nearly five times more than the average for hospitals in England.
Other measures showed increasing pressures on the hospital: both ambulances queuing with patients for more than 30 minutes and patients being looked after on trolleys before being admitted to wards were slightly up. But no planned operations had to be cancelled.
The target for 95 per cent of A&E patients to be seen within four hours was missed, but the number of beds blocked with patients ready to leave hospital but with no after care arranged fell by 64 to 45 – well below the national average of 105 blocked beds.
On top of the £250m released in early autumn by NHS England for winter pressures, a further £150m was released at the end of November 2013. Of this GWH received £1,208,000 through the Swindon Clinical Commissioning Group.