EXHAUSTED staff in emergency departments at Gloucestershire hospitals could start making mistakes unless something is done to ease the pressure on them.
That is the fear of Frank Harsent, chief executive of the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, who said A&E nurses and doctors were feeling the strain after a long, hard winter which has seen attendance spiral.
A rise in admissions has led to staff in Accident and Emergency departments missing national standards for a four-hour waiting time.
Last month only 86.8 per cent of patients were seen within four hours compared to a national target of 95 per cent – a level not achieved since November.
Dr Harsent said ensuring something was done to improve emergency waiting times was of paramount importance and warned heads of department they would have to "up their game". "This is the most pressing issue the trust is facing," he said at a trust board meeting yesterday.
"This winter we are not yet out of is probably one of the worst I have experienced and we are not out of it yet.
"We've got to get some change before next winter which is only 20 weeks away.
"We all have to up our game.
"There has been a lot of pressure on our staff.
"We are seeing some evidence of rising sickness levels.
"The concern is that this unrelenting pressure has been there for three going on four months.
"Staff have been fantastic, but they are tired.
"If we are not careful its tired staff who will make more mistakes. They've gone the extra mile but they need some of this burden taking off them."
The problem stems from a significant rise in A&E attendances. They have gone up from 324 a day in April last year to 347 a day this month.
It comes after a busy winter during which outbreaks of norovirus saw a rise in the number of A&E admissions and teething problems with new computer systems.
However, Dr Harsent said the problem was compounded by a failure to shift patients on from hospital beds once they no longer needed to be there.
The news comes as a consultation is ongoing into plans to downgrade Cheltenham General Hospital's A&E department.
It could see it closed to critically injured people between 8pm and 8am, with patients taken to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital instead.
