Hospital denies enforcing emergency pandemic plan
The Royal Berkshire Hospital said it opened an extra ward following a recent rise in admissions
ROYAL Berkshire Hospital has denied reports that it enforced an emergency pandemic plan earlier this month purely because of a flu outbreak.
The hospital did confirm however that part of the pandemic plans were implemented but put this down to a general increase in admissions and not due to flu and swine flu.
The hospital said that the 27 per cent rise in admissions covered all different cases and not just flu, as was reported in other media outlets earlier this week. As a result of the increase, the hospital did open an extra ward, which increased the intensive care beds from 11 to 14.
Royal Berkshire Hospital spokesman Joe Wise said: “We had a busy period at the end of the year. We had a 27 per cent rise in admissions, but that was overall admissions, not just admissions due to flu. There were a lot of people who had other ailments.
Regarding swine flu, Mr Wise said: “We actually had a really, really small number of swine flu patients. You could count them on one hand.
“We brought in the first stages of the pandemic plan and that lasted for several days.”
He said the plan meant more staff were kept on standby and that staff that were working in administration roles could be asked to help in other roles, such as helping out as a porter freeing up more crucial medical staff to take care of clinical duties.
He said that the hospital has since returned to normal duties.
West Berkshire, like the rest of the country, suffered from a outbreak of flu just after Christmas, with many people suffering from swine flu.
Hospitals, emergency services and many doctors surgeries suffered under very heavy workloads.
In some cases, there was even a run on flu vaccines, with all of the pharmacies in West Berkshire contacted by Newburytoday.co.uk one week reporting that they had run out of vaccine stocks. Further reports said people in at-risk groups were being turned away from their local surgeries and told to find their own vaccines, while other surgeries reported having to share vaccine supplies and to limit it to the highest risk groups.
The Health Protection Agency, which collects data on flu cases, reported that a total 338 people have died from flu since the start of the season in October.
However, the disease seems to be in retreat as the number of GP consultations in England has fallen to 40.7 per 100,000, down from triple that, 124,4 per 100,000 at the end of December.
