THE accident and emergency department at Worcestershire Royal Hospital is “not fit for purpose”, one of the county’s most senior nurses has claimed.

Executive nurse with NHS South Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) Mari Gay raised the concerns at a meeting of the organisation’s governing body on Thursday January 22, where she said the design of the department was not up to scratch.

Her comments came following weeks of extremely high demand at the hospital, with the amount of patients visiting the department putting resources under serious strain, meaning many patients have been treated on beds in the corridor at the Royal’s A&E.

Although this is common practice during periods of high demand and measures are in place to ensure these patients receive the same quality of service as those in standard treatment bays, Mrs Gay said she believed lines of beds in the corridor made it much more difficult for elderly patients to get around the department.

“It’s not fit for purpose for the demographics of Worcestershire,” she said.

“There are some internal flow issues and it’s just not fit at the moment.”

The CCG’s chief operating officer Simon Trickett said the issue of the amount of space in the department was a perennial one.

“The space is a big issue,” he said.

“With the best will in the world we can’t deliver that quality in that limited space.

“But to get this sorted out is a very drawn-out process. It’s a three to four year thing.”

But, speaking after the meeting, chairman of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust – the organisation running the Royal as well as Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital – Harry Turner disagreed.

“I certainly wouldn’t say that,” he said.

He added he was surprised by the comments.

“The representatives from the CCGS came to A&E when it was at its peak pressure and the report back was very positive,” he said.

Board member with the CCG Sarah Harvey Speck said, although treating patients in a corridor is far from ideal, there were steps that could be taken to make their experience better such as making sure they were as comfortable as possible and their families had somewhere to sit rather than being forced to stand for hours on end.

“Nothing is good about being on a trolley in a corridor, but there are simple things we can do to make it a little bit better,” she said.

“That said, it’s just wrong to have people in a corridor.

“It’s failing particularly elderly members of the population.”

Numerous measures have been put in place to deal with the amount of demand at the hospital, including a Patient Flow Centre, with more to come including a new GP-led urgent care centre to be set up in a large former office building directly opposite the Royal’s A&E.

The unit will be able to deal with up to 80 patients a day and is expected to be up and running this summer.