Motion: National Bed Assessment

National Bed Assessment

Lodged by Dr Jean Turner Members' Business Motion 25 supporters

The motion

That the Parliament notes that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde now has responsibility for a population of approximately one million; considers, therefore, that an urgent assessment is required of all numbers of beds, including high dependency and intensive care beds and those set aside for barrier nursing, since availability of every type of bed is crucial to the best clinical decisions and nursing care, as well as to the smooth and easy flow of the patient journey from one area of a hospital to another as their medical condition changes for better or worse; recognises that not having appropriate beds of any kind, in any speciality at any one time, can mean that a patient may have to stay in intensive care longer than necessary and thus block a bed for a patient who should be transferred from a high-dependency bed or theatre to an intensive care unit bed; acknowledges that delays to admission from casualty, accident and emergency or trauma departments may also be due to a lack of all types of beds being available, thus resulting in the discharge of patients in the evening in order to free a bed for an emergency admission; recognises that important elective procedures and operations may have to be cancelled at short notice as a result of no appropriate bed being available because of a general bed shortage, and therefore, in light of an increasingly ageing population with more complex conditions and in anticipation of a further rise of medical admissions including all types of infections, in particular MRSA, winter and summer vomiting viruses which often close wards, considers that work should be done to address our present problems within such a large NHS board and as a result decrease waiting times and lists.

Supporters (25)