NHS Grampian's £16million bid to increase bed availability at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary
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NHS Grampian will look to add an extra 120 beds at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary over the next two years in a bid to meet increasing demand.
The beds come with an associated staffing cost of around £16.835million.
The health board launched a bed base review earlier this year to find immediate and long-term solutions to ensure access was available across the city hospital.
However, there is a rising pressure for beds as occupancy has increased and patients find themselves dealing with more complex issues.
Aberdeen’s A&E department has also struggled to hit its waiting time targets due to a lack of beds.
The health board has admitted low bed numbers has also contributed to ambulances being forced to wait outside.
While the number of hospital beds has fallen across the country, NHS Grampian has suffered from a “greater” fall than others.
In a report due to go to the NHS Grampian Board later this week, health chiefs have admitted the bed base at ARI is “inadequate” to meet demand.
They added: “This is having a significant impact on not only system performance but also staff wellbeing.”
Health bosses havve agreed to add 40 beds to the Aberdeen site by March 2024.
Of this number, 32 will be provided for elderly and respiratory care, while some will also be given to the general medicine ward.
NHS Grampian is currently in the process of recruiting much-needed new members of staff to cope with the increase, including newly graduated nurses.
The new beds will be added to the hospital over four proposed stages.
A review of the impact that the additional beds has had on hospital services will be carried out in the spring before any work on the second stage is carried out.
But, the remaining 80 beds won’t be signed off until the health board manages to find suitable funding.
At the moment, NHS Grampian is overspending by £42.9 million.
The report adds: “In order to commission and fund these additional beds, there will need to be a mixture of service prioritisation and pathway redesign in order to deliver services at a reduced cost.”
It states that the extra beds will help to stabilise services and improve patient experience at ARI.
Meanwhile, they will help to reduce patients being cared for in hospital corridors and prevent sending poorly patients to other specialty wards.
Those placed in other wards can sometimes spend more time in hospital and be moved to multiple wards during their stay.
The report says there is an “ambitious” timeframe to provide extra staffed bed capacity at ARI in time for an expected surge in demand over the winter.
And a failure to reach this target “may affect confidence and credibility with citizens, colleagues, Scottish Government and partners”.
