Wrexham Maelor Hospital apologises for A&E delays and shortage of inpatient beds

The north Wales health board has apologised after “significant demand” and a shortage of inpatient beds led to long delays for individuals at the Wrexham Maelor Hospital this week.

Patients at the city’s emergency department were left waiting several hours to be seen on Monday (11 March) and yesterday.

One person contacted us to say that their 79-year-old elderly relative with a “severe chest infection” had spent 12 hours waiting for medical care. Others detailed the ‘huge’ number of ambulances outside, with another who was dropping food for someone waiting on Monday evening describing the situation as ‘unsustainable’.

There were also reports of around 20 ambulances seen parked outside the hospital’s emergency department – with the health board confirming that “upward of 15” were there at the height of the delays.

Demand continued yesterday with eight ambulances seen parked outside the hospital in the afternoon.

The delays within the emergency department are believed to have been partly caused by a lack of inpatient beds within the hospital along with an increased demand for services.

Multiple people who attended the emergency department have said they had been told there was around a three day wait for beds.

Dr Michelle Greene, Director of the East Integrated Health Community at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, confirmed that the hospital is “reviewing all options on site” in a bid to to reduce delays in the department.

She added that the health board continued to “face challenges” discharging patients to suitable accomodation or care services.

“Our Emergency Department in Wrexham Maelor Hospital is extremely busy due to significant demand over the last couple of days, resulting in much longer waiting times than we would like over this period despite the best efforts of our nursing and medical staff,” said Dr Greene.

“We would like to apologise to anyone waiting for a lengthy time, especially those waiting for an inpatient bed, and assure them we are reviewing all options on site to allow us to reduce delays in the department.

“We continue to face challenges to discharge patients from hospital to suitable accommodation or care services.

“This does impact flow through the entire hospital system, and on our ability to bring patients into and through the Emergency Department in a timely manner and we continue to work with our health and social care partners to improve this.

“We would urge the public to only attend the Emergency Department for life threatening conditions and injuries, and please continue to help us by choosing the right service for their needs.

“Patients who do not need full emergency treatment may find that they can get appropriate advice and care from other NHS services, including GP surgeries, minor injury units and local pharmacies.

“Please visit the Health Board and NHS Wales 111 website for advice if you are unsure where to go.”

Readers will have noticed we have a box on site tracking as live as possible data from the Maelor.

Last night at around 8PM the NHS data said there were 104 patients in the department, with a a ‘typical time’ in department of just 1 hours 15 minutes.

The data for the last four days is graphed below, with the recent issues possibly being shown :

A note to the NHS data explains “The Typical time in department times are indicative based on previous attendance data. The information does not include patients arriving by ambulance, or patients with a serious condition that is likely to result in a hospital admission” and “The Currently in Department is a ‘live’ view of the current number of patients in the department”.

A wider snapshot graph of the data since we started logging is below: