By Press Release
The IW Observer has discovered that a Portsmouth hospital ward, funded by the Island’s NHS, has been used to address maintenance backlogs, while St Mary’s Hospital has turned patients away unless they have life-threatening conditions.
In August 2019, the Island’s NHS welcomed a £48 million boost to “redesign acute services for Isle of Wight residents”. However, it later came to light that £10m of the sum was to be passed to Portsmouth NHS.
Private board documents from Portsmouth University Hospitals (PUH) NHS Trust have now revealed that 38 of 76 beds in a new ward – paid for by the IW NHS and opened late last year – will ‘initially’ and then ‘outside of winter’ be used to house patients from elsewhere in the hospital. This is to enable a backlog of essential maintenance to take place. In a press release announcing the new ward, QAH described it as ‘part of wider regeneration plans for the hospital’. Meanwhile, in recent months, St Mary’s has announced three critical incidents due to a shortage of beds on the Island, with patients only seen if they have life-threatening conditions or injuries.
QAH’s new 76-bed ward was first planned in February 2019, but no funding was available. Six months later, the £48m award was announced. It is unclear from the board papers when the £10m handover was agreed but, by January 2020, details had been submitted to the Government, even before plans for the rest of the funding had been finalised.
The new ward has been added to QAH’s existing PFI contract, a funding arrangement which has attracted widespread criticism, including from Portsmouth North MP, Penny Mordaunt, who said such schemes ‘crippled hospital finances’. In 2019, Portsmouth News reported that the 32-year PFI scheme’s costs had spiralled by 70 per cent, to more than £1.7billion.
Aside from QAH generally having more beds, there are few details about how building the new ward on the mainland will benefit Islanders. But for QAH, as well as the ability to carry out building repairs, the new ward will help hit bed occupancy targets and reduce pressure on emergency services with quicker ambulance handovers. In the criteria for judging the project’s success, there is no mention of the Isle of Wight.
An Isle of Wight NHS Trust spokeswoman said: “The Island’s NHS works as part of a system and Islanders will need to access healthcare on the mainland. The investment in additional beds in Portsmouth means that QAH is more resilient and better able to respond to the healthcare needs of our local community. Since the new beds opened every Islander who has needed a bed in Portsmouth has been able to get one.”
The spokeswoman made no mention of the critical incidents, which left Island patients unable to access St Mary’s Hospital unless their life was in danger.
The IW Observer is still waiting for IW NHS Trust to respond to a Freedom of Information request giving the evidence taken into account when the decision was made to build the new ward in Portsmouth rather than on the Island.
Header image: The work beginning on the new ward, centre is QAH chief executive Penny Emerit
