Hospital chiefs defend elderly ward closure
GoogleHealth bosses have defended the closure of an elderly patients' ward as part of moves to treat more people in the community.
Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust shut Ward 23 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital last year, which had specialised in the care of people with dementia.
Opponents branded the move unacceptable and warned there would be fewer beds for vulnerable people.
The trust has now released data it claimed showed improvements across their services and described the figures as "encouraging".
The closure came with the trust needing to make £32.8m in savings, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, and the implementation of a 10-year NHS plan for shorter hospital stays.
Beth Swanson, chief nurse at the trust, said the organisation had "strengthened" how it cared for older people "by expanding support in the community and improving how patients move through the hospital".
"We have expanded our frailty services, developed a virtual ward and strengthened support for people leaving the hospital so that more people can receive the right care in the right place.
"The results we are seeing are encouraging. Fewer patients are experiencing very long waits in our emergency department, services have remained stable and more people are being supported safely at home."
The trust said performance data covering 2024 to 2026 showed 74.41% of patients were now being treated within four hours in the hospital's emergency department - a rise from 70.95%.
The number of people waiting more than 12 hours fell by almost half, from 3,406 to 1,781, and bed capacity remained steady at about 95%.
SuppliedIn September, campaign group Keep Our NHS Public called for a U-turn on Ward 23's closure, saying there had been a lack of consultation.
One of its members, former nurse Maddy Nettleship, warned the replacement services would not match the previous level of care provided and had resulted in the loss of 24 hospital beds.
"Care in the community is good but it actually takes a lot more staff to provide care in the community than it does on a ward - and they haven't got that," she told BBC Radio Newcastle.
"They've got three extra frailty nurses, that's for the whole of Gateshead, and they also cover people in the hospital as well."