New hospital 'inadequate'

Health bosses blame 'bed blockers' for the shortage of beds

An NHS hospital which opened 14 weeks ago after being built with private money is "grossly inadequate" to cope with demand, a union leader has claimed.

He said that if the hospital had been built with public funds it would have offered more and better facilities.

North Durham Healthcare Trust said the new University of North Durham Hospital had a temporary 54-bed shortage, as staff were finding it difficult to move patients into residential nursing care after treatment.

But Robin Moss, head of health in the north for the health service union Unison, said: "It is sad that within weeks the new hospital that the people of Durham have been waiting 50 years for has been revealed as grossly inadequate to serve the purposes it was designed for.

Within weeks the new hospital that the people of Durham have been waiting 50 years for has been revealed as grossly inadequate

Robin Moss, of Unison

Improvement

"Had the new hospital been built with public money it would have had more beds, more nurses and been built three years earlier."

Trust chairman Kevin Earley admitted he would have liked up to 30 more beds at the new hospital, but added that it was a "glorious improvement" on the one it replaced.

Mr Earley said the new 454-bed hospital opened on April 2 this year at a cost of £76 million with Private Finance Initiative funds. It replaced Dryburn Hospital, which had 665 beds.

Mr Earley insisted that, although it had a smaller capacity, the new hospital was much better than the "appalling" facility it replaced.

"This is a glorious improvement on the crumbling, dowdy building we had here," he said.

"It is an absolutely huge leap in health care."

He said there were 20 to 30 beds less than he would have liked.

"If I had them (the extra beds) life would be a bit easier - but we would still be full.

Bed blocking

"We made a decision we could operate on less beds.

"What we have now is a blockage of placing people in care - that was probably a mistake we didn't realise."

Mr Earley said Durham County Council Social Services had since been placed under more pressure to find places for people well enough to leave hospital but who still needed care.

He added: "We the tax-payer have to work out what we are going to pay for. We should put more money into residential nursing care, I would argue."

He denied Unison's claims that people had been waiting in casualty for 12 hours, but admitted that patients had been waiting "too long" and said £500,000 had been set aside to tackle the problem by employing more staff.

Mr Earley said Unison's criticism was bad for the morale of staff and patients and added: "I'm appalled they want to keep doing this as a political campaign."