Derriford Hospital

(asked on 3rd March 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to assist Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust to deal with increased patient numbers at Derriford Hospital.


Answered by
 Portrait
Jane Ellison
This question was answered on 10th March 2015

We are advised by NHS England that it has provided two tranches of resilience funding to Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust totalling £4,885,000, and that the Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has provided an additional £1,500,000 in recognition of the impact of the additional activity pressures.

The following actions have been taken to reduce demand to the hospital site and facilitate discharge from the hospital:

- Detailed Activity Management Plan agreed between the providers and the CCG which is being monitored through the integrated performance and assurance meeting process and the System Resilience Group/Urgent Care Partnership;

- Additional investment to an in-hours general practitioner (GP)/paramedic visiting service in order to bring primary care visits forward in the day and stagger demand (demand reduction of c. 12 patients per day);

- GP practice (30,000 patients) has been operating an in-hours visiting service and has reduced c. 12 admissions per month. This is continuing;

- Establishment of an “alternative front door” to emergency department reduced in the region of 30 non-elective admissions in one week;

- Increased consistency of minor injuries unit service across Devon to increase dispositions from 111, reducing accident and emergency attends;

- 96 additional GP appointments per weekend funded from the Prime Ministers’ Challenge Fund;

- £140,000 allocated through winter monies for 111 Clinical Streaming by Devon Doctors Ltd; and

- Consistent use of the Special Patient Message (SPM) service with GP out-of-hours service to ensure SPMs are in place for at least the 2% of people.

The NHS Trust Development Authority (NHS TDA) advises that a number of steps are being taken to address increased demand, including opening 68 extra beds and increasing accident and emergency capacity through the use of Trust and agency staff.

NHS TDA further advises that a de-escalation plan has been developed by the Trust with the support of NHS England’s Devon, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Area Team, and is intended to be submitted to the CCG shortly.

Reticulating Splines