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Media release
Hospitals Coped Well During Severe Weather Conditions Due to Actions of Heroic Staff
Posted: December 22nd 2009
It has been 'business as usual' for all our hospitals during this unprecedented severe weather. Our hospitals have been very busy but all our services are running with minimum disruption to patients and staff.
This has only been possible due to the actions of our dedicated staff who have been absolutely fantastic and in some cases 'heroic'.
Not all our staff live locally so getting to work has been difficult. Most made it and there have been some exceptional stories where staff have left at 5am, walked 3 – 4 hours and volunteered to work 24 hour shifts to care for their patients.
Hospitals are always busy places, but inclement weather such as we have just experienced, puts an additional strain on the service. We have seen the largest number of ambulances ever turning up at our doors - almost 100 a day! Obviously there have been many trips and falls and some of these have unfortunately resulted in painful breaks. But there have also been very seriously ill patients who needed the expertise and skill of the ambulance staff to get them here.
Although this has been a difficult time we have coped very well and have worked very closely with other ‘health’ agencies to prioritise patients and manage this very difficult situation.
Information is very important when coping with severe weather conditions as experienced over the last few days. As soon as heavy snow was forecast the Trust established an internal ‘Silver Command’ group who met twice a day to review the situation. This enabled us to ensure messages about how the services were running and the possibility of further bad weather to be relayed to staff and put on our Internet page every few hours
We have worked extremely hard to make sure our inter-site buses are running a normal service between sites and the estate department have worked tirelessly to keep the hospital sites gritted for both patients and staff.
Notes to Editors:
Some examples of staff commitment:
- Last night (Monday 21 December 09) we did experience transport delays for both staff and patients due to the weather traffic conditions in our local area. While staff were waiting for the inter-site bus to arrive at Watford the Associate Director Hotel Services and facilities staff stayed with them to keep their spirits up until the bus arrived. (The bus arrived late due to the weather conditions).
- Our catering staff at Hemel Hempstead Hospital provided cooked food for patients who were in the Urgent Care Centre.
- Some staff spent a long time getting home last night (Monday 21 December) due to the adverse weather conditions, some not getting home until midnight, but they arrived on time for their shift this morning.
For more information please telephone the Press Office on 07900228031
