Hospital plan for beds in canteen

A London hospital is planning to put emergency patients in the boardroom, canteen and chapel to cope with bed shortages, the Evening Standard can reveal.

A policy document drawn up by managers at Ealing hospital also states that lecture theatres and outpatient areas will be used for emergency patients on trolleys.

Managers at the hospital are prepared to use the area at times of "extreme" pressure.

The document also reveals that the maternity unit, an "inappropriate" accident and emergency corridor and the dermatology outpatients area are also earmarked to take patients if there is a risk of 12-hour trolley waits or operations being cancelled for a second time.

Four patients waited for more than 12 hours in A&E in November and December last year.

The official policy document highlights the pressure faced by the capital's hospitals a week after complaints about the Whittington hospital in north London sparked a furious political row about the state of the NHS.

Patients' Association director Mike Stone said: "This is the most bizarre plan I have ever heard. I have never heard suggestions that patients should be put in the boardroom.

"The managers are doing the right thing in making contingency plans, but they really shouldn't have to, because there should be enough beds. The pressures they describe for putting these policies in place sound fairly normal for a busy London hospital."

The document categorises pressure for beds by level. Level-two status is described as a larger number of patients coming in for routine or emergency treatment than are being discharged, with the risk of routine surgery being cancelled. Areas to be considered for housing emergency patients include day rooms and additional trolley space.

By level four, when there is a risk of trolley waits rising to 12 hours, the maternity unit, physiotherapy gym, A&E corridor and dermatology outpatient areas are all to be used. The corridor is described as " inappropriate", while one outpatient area has no resuscitation equipment, drugs or furniture.

In the last resort - described as "mega incident options" - the document considers opening the boardroom, gymnasium, chapel lecture theatre, canteen, main outpatient area and endoscopy unit.

Geoff Martin, London convenor for Unison and director of pressure group London Health Emergency, said: "The fact that London hospitals have these kinds of plans in place exposes the true pressure they are under.

"All acute hospitals across the capital probably have this type of policy and, more worryingly, they are probably being put into action on a regular basis."

Ealing's casualty department was closed for two hours on 31 December owing to a lack of beds and "severe pressure". The hospital also faces an overspend of £500,000 to cope with the rising cost of emergency services and to meet waiting list targets, a report to Hammersmith and Hounslow Health Authority revealed earlier this month.

The deputy chief executive of the NHS Trust, John Blakesley, said the hospital had been on level-four status on "a number of occasions" in the last month. But he said putting patients in "last-resort" areas such as the canteen or gym had not been necessary as they had been diverted to other hospitals.

He said: "The plan is used as a working document to consistently make the best and safest use of the available facilities within the hospital. At the end of the plan, a list of areas is provided that could be used in a major incident situation. None of these areas has been used within the last year."