Issue - meetings

26.1     The Committee considered a report updating on hospital handover delays at the Royal Sussex County Hospital (RSCH) and ongoing work between University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust (UHSx) and South East Coast Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust (SECAmb) to reduce them. Peter Lane, Hospital Director Royal Sussex County Hospital outlined that there are a number of short, medium and long term measures in place to reduce hospital handover times at the RSCH and patients are very rarely held in the back of ambulances. Paul Fisher, SECAmb Brighton Operating Unit Manager added that there was a lot of collaborative work to reduce hand over times and waits over 60 minutes, and it is hoped that benefit of this work will be seen in the next 6-12 months.

26.2     The Committee asked whether RSCH compared its handover times with other tertiary hospitals and if so, how it compared with them.

26.3     Alex Darling, Operations Manager at Brighton Make Ready Centre commented that SECAmb had data from 18 hospitals that it covered in the South East region, which included other trauma centres in the region and accepted a similar number of patients to the RSCH. When comparing data on handover delays the RSCH was almost always the hospital with the highest number of delays. Peter Lane commented that it was recognised that there was still more work to do to reduce handover times. Paul Fisher added that the challenges faced in reducing waiting times were recognised and both organisations work well together to deliver the best service that they can.

26.4     The Chair thanked both SECAmb and UHSx for all their hard work on this issue.

26.5     The Committee RESOLVED to note the report and receive an update report in 6 months time.