The year 2001 has pulled a mix of good and bad fortune out of the bag for Mayday Hospital.

In the Spring, funding was announced for spending on a new 222 bed ward block, and by the summer preparation work had already begun on the £22.6 million development.

Closely on its tail was more good news of badly needed funds £1.2 million for extending the chaotic accident and emergency unit responsible for some of the worst A&E waits in the country.

But despite the waits, a Sunday Times hospital guide published in January said only four in every 1000 patients made official complaints a figure set to reduce further with the introduction of the patient liaison service, PALS.

And in the autumn, staff were commended by the Commission for Health Improvement (CHI) for running excellent breast, maternity and stroke care units.

But celebrations were postponed in light of recurrent reminders that waiting lists remained intolerably long between the 20th and 50th worst in the UK, a report from CHI of unusually high numbers of deaths among patients with fractured hips, and news in the winter that a minimum of 94 extra nurses at a cost of £2million were needed to meet minimum standards in some areas.

But rather than allow bitter spirits to wilt the good memories of the year, staff are learning from failures and successes and are looking forward to the promise of strategic improvements in 2002.

Focusing on September's crucial CHI report, bosses have produced an action plan for improvements and have already recruited an anaesthetist specialising in administering anaesthetic drugs to the elderly a patient group which dominates the fractured neck of femur (broken hip) waiting list damned in the report.

Until now a major reason why patients have often had to wait five days for hip operations instead of the recommended 24 hours has been, paradoxically, a reluctance to anaesthetise old people because of the risk of death it carries.

Although Mayday's stroke unit is considered second to none, CHI found that the high percentage of stroke patients not seen there were to be found dotted around the hospital often without being seen by a specialist doctor or physiotherapist.

The care of stroke victims on general wards is to be overseen by a newly appointed stroke care co-ordinator who is in the process of setting up a stroke register for more effective monitoring of standards.

The number of beds in the stroke unit are also to rise from 15 to 21.

From January 2002 trust bosses plan to find a contractor to take on the new A&E extension, who will hopefully start building work in March 2002.

The work will not be completed until the end of 2002, but a new reception and triage should be in use by mid September, complete with a new Croydoc and Croydent facility upstairs.

The new facilities will include a paediatric A&E enabled by £300,000 for new staff.

From February tighter controls on non-urgent surgery cases will free up beds and enable A&E patients to be transferred to a bed within four hours of the decision to admit.

Cash granted to social services will also help reduce delayed discharges by 20 per cent, freeing up around nine beds.

The 15 month surgery waiting list will also be gradually reduced so that by the end of February there will be no-one waiting this long.

The new ward block complete with extra beds will be complete by December 2002, ready for relocation during the first half of 2003.

Bosses await news from Croydon Health Authority on whether extra cash to recruit nurses will be included in a new budget from April 2002.

Improvements in primary care are also set to lighten the load on Mayday from April.

December 27, 2001 08:30