NHS execs finalising winter plan for North Cumbria hospitals

Directors of North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust met at the Cumberland Infirmary on Wednesday.

Executive Chief Operating Officer Imran Devji updated the board on the drafting of a 2025 winter plan.

Imran Devji Executive COO at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust(Image: NCIC)

The plan is set to be submitted by September 30, feeding-into a regional strategy.

Plans for this winter include working closely with community teams and drawing on the support of intermediate care offered by Cumberland Council, preventing unnecessary attendance at NCIC's acute hospitals.

Executive COO Imran Devji said: "Instead of reacting, to step-down capacity from the acute, we're going to focus on step-up capacity, so preventing patients from presenting when they don't need to into acute care settings."

Acute healthcare settings, such as West Cumberland Hospital and the Cumberland Infirmary, treat patients who are severely unwell.

West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven(Image: Newsquest)

Mr Devji was asked to name the biggest risks going into the winter period. He said: "Safety and quality is going to be critical as always.

"But the 12 hour wait, which is linked to corridor care, is a big risk so we really have to manage that."

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Mr Devji said that managing demands, ensuring patients are cared for by the right team in the right environment, "remains critical."

NCIC will have "earlier thresholds in anticipation of where our tip-over points are, so before we get there, having actions in place to prevent. Corridor care is a big real risk, 12 hours is a real risk."

The meeting of NCIC directors at the Cumberland Infirmary boardroom on Wednesday(Image: Newsquest)

The amount of patients spending over 12 hours in A&E has improved in North Cumbria recently, from 10.5 per cent in June to 9.1 per cent in July.

However, this did not meet NCIC's target of 8.2 per cent.

Mr Devji said: "We've done well since the August bank holiday when we had a reset period for Urgent Emergency Care.

"Our 12 hour waits, from over 10 per cent, have actually come down to about 7.9 per cent currently, in August."

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Mr Devji said: "September's looking a little bit more challenging but we're holding under the nine per cent. We anticipate it'll probably be just under nine per cent in the middle of winter.

"We'll be primed to make sure we do everything possible to get it to eight per cent or lower because the mortality's very high in that."

Decision-making about care will be linked to a multi-agency helpline called Match.

Mr Devji said that this will help to coordinate support from other services in the health service, further reducing the demand on North Cumbria's A&E departments and hospital wards.