William Harvey Hospital in Kent sorry for using cafe as A&E ward
A hospital boss has apologised after a Kent emergency department resorted to using its cafe as a makeshift ward. A&E staff at William Harvey Hospital in Ashford decided to screen off the building’s cafe on Tuesday to create space for treating patients. East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust said the move was due to…
A hospital boss has apologised after a Kent emergency department resorted to using its cafe as a makeshift ward.
A&E staff at William Harvey Hospital in Ashford decided to screen off the building’s cafe on Tuesday to create space for treating patients.
East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust said the move was due to “significant demand”.
Trust chief executive Tracey Fletcher said: “We know this is unacceptable and we are very sorry to patients who have been cared for in this way.”
A “small number” of patients were looked after in the cafe until emergency patients could be moved to other wards in the hospital, the trust said.
Labour MP for Ashford Sojan Joseph said it was “not acceptable” to use corridors to care for patients but said staff worked “incredibly hard under very difficult circumstances caused by a decade and a half of cuts”.
He said: “It’s something I saw there during my time as a nurse. However, senior management across East Kent Hospitals must do more to step up and improve standards across all levels of care.”
Ms Fletcher said it was “sometimes necessary” to treat patients in corridors despite staff’s efforts, but that use of the cafe, first reported by Kent Online, “will not be allowed to happen again”.
East Kent Hospitals ranked 101 out of 134 in a league table of trusts’ performance that NHS England published earlier this month.
