Patients sent 28 miles as Blackburn A&E closed for three hours

8:30pm Tuesday 11th November 2008

By Camilla Sutcliffe

EMERGENCY patients were sent to hospitals up to 28 miles away after East Lancashire’s overrun A&E department was forced to close for three hours.

Bosses of the Royal Blackburn Hospital said it was the first time ever that the sheer number of patients had forced them to close A&E for such a length of time.

Critics said they were concerned that the problems showed that a single A&E unit was not enough for an area the size of East Lancashire.

But health chiefs said the new A&E had the same number of beds as the old two units combined and that the problems were caused by an ‘expected wave’ of patients.

At 7pm on Monday, 36 patients were inside A&E being assessed. Six ambulances queueing outside while another five were on their way to the A&E. They were all diverted to either Preston, Chorley, Rochdale and Airedale hospitals. Airedale General Hospital near Keighley is 28 miles away.

Bosses took the decision to close their doors to seriously-ill patients for three hours, while staff battled to clear the backlog.

A patient who was picked up by ambulance after collapsing in Burnley said he ended up at Fairfield Hospital in Bury, finding himself stranded there at 1.30am.

He said: “I had no money for a taxi, and to take me back home to Blackburn would have cost a lot. They had no patient transport, so they ended up keeping me in a bed there for the night, even though I had officially been discharged. It was ridiculous.”

One member of staff who was working in the emergency department, said: “We have had ambulances queueing up before and ended up informally asking the paramedics to keep the pressure off us, but that was the first time we’ve had to officially tell them we couldn’t take any more.

“It was horrendous. It’s always a struggle on a Monday because people come in with things they’ve been suffering with all weekend, but if we can’t cope with that, how are we going to manage over winter?”

Burnley Council leader Gordon Birtwistle, who has campaigned for the return of Burnley A&E, said: “This shows yet again that our campaign is not about politics. It’s about bringing proper services back to the people of East Lancashire.”

Coun Tony Humphrys, Blackburn with Darwen’s health scrutiny vice-chairman, added: “If the hospital has not been able to ensure that it can cope with the needs of the people of East Lancashire, then we have to be very concerned and there have to be repercussions.”

The trust’s medical director Geraint Jones said the decision to turn away patients had been taken “reluctantly”.

But he said clinical advice was that it was the only way to ensure patients would be properly cared for.

He said: “Our first priority is to ensure we provide a safe emergency service. Thanks to the commitment of our staff we were able to open fully again some three hours later and remained open.”

He paid tribute to staff, many of whom had to work overtime or even return to the hospital after they had gone home, to help deal with the influx of patients.