THE Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (RCHT) had been hopeful of ending corridor care at Treliske by the end of October, but those plans have been derailed by a declared ‘critical incident’, with patients once again being treated in corridors across the hospital.

A report by RCHT’s acting chief executive Kim O’Keeffe to the trust’s board on Thursday, November 5 set out its aim was to end corridor care by the end of last month.

Her report stated: “At the time of writing, corridor care spaces on the base wards are not in use. The number of corridor care spaces in the Emergency Department (ED) have reduced to six, with none currently in use.”

However, the Royal Cornwall Hospital has seen a surge in patients since the start of November, so much so that it is now into the third day of a ‘critical incident’ - meaning demand has outstripped its current capacity and normal operations can no longer be safely or effectively maintained without taking emergency steps.

Ms O’Keeffe told the meeting: “We were out of all of the corridor care on our wards. We had reduced our ED corridor to six, but unfortunately the weekend and the last three days means we are back in all of those areas as well as areas such as a bedded discharge lounge and day case areas.

“It’s really important that we now stabilise and continue with our commitment to sustainable recovery. It isn’t just sub-optimal care for our patients – we have to recognise that this also has an impact on workforce resilience as well as our financial recovery.”

Robin Jones, the trust’s deputy chief executive and chief operating officer, added: “We had cleared our ward-based corridor care spaces through October and the team are absolutely determined to get back there. We’ve defined the exit of our critical incident being restoring no corridor care on wards, no corridor care in ED and restoring the 12-hour delivery.”

He added that an average ‘good’ day would see 130 to 140 hospital discharges, but yesterday there were 186 discharges “in response to the pressure that our emergency department was under, so we’re in a significantly better place but not fully out of where we’ve been”.

Mr Jones cited the “extreme pressure” that Treliske’s ED team has been under, with ED clinicians raising concerns of pressures caused by crowding. “We listened to that, which is why we called the critical incident,” he added.

“We have seen improvement in our four-hour delivery, however not to the level we set as our ambition in our recovery plan. Ambulance handovers have seen a significant improvement.”

The board’s latest integrated performance report notes that average ambulance handover time fell from 89 to 45 minutes, while the proportion of handovers involving waits over 15 minutes reduced to 76.33 per cent. Those measures improved materially despite Treliske attendances being 12 per cent above last year.

Four-hour performance improved for the third month in a row at Treliske, although it remains low at 47.17 per cent. Twelve-hour stays in ED have improved for the third month in a row to 14.31 per cent.