County Durham NHS to boost winter capacity with new hospital beds

Additional community hospital beds will be made available in County Durham and Darlington this winter to alleviate pressure on NHS hospitals.

The County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, which manages some of the region's health services, stated that the extra capacity will benefit patients and staff during the busy winter months. An extra 28 beds have been commissioned at Bishop Auckland Hospital, along with 13 surge beds at Darlington Memorial Hospital.

Sue Jacques, the trust's chief executive, said the additional beds would allow staff to anticipate and respond to "volatile changes in demand".

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"We've got additional bed capacity," Ms Jacques informed County Durham councillors at a scrutiny meeting. "We've opened a new ward at Bishop Auckland Hospital, which opened this month. We can then do other things if there's a need to."

Bishop Auckland Hospital lost its acute services in 2009, including its accident and emergency department, as part of efficiency measures. A campaign to reopen the A&E department, led by then local MP Dehenna Davison, was launched in 2019 but was unsuccessful. The facility was repurposed last year ahead of the 2023 winter period and will once again provide extra capacity to cope with demand.

In addition to the extra beds, the trust has implemented several other government-recommended measures, including urgent community response and hospital at home services.

Ms Jacques added: "We've put some new services in place in recent years including same day emergency care, and they are critical at turning patients around fairly quickly. They can treat patients with fairly minor ailments that A&E can't and we're looking to optimise those."

Other priorities include improving ambulance handover times, emergency department waiting times and hospital discharges. The importance of same day urgent care hubs were also highlighted as key to responding to the winter pressures. Open seven days a week throughout winter, the trust said it is exploring funding additional capacity in the University Hospital North Durham hub for the full month of January.

It is hoped the improvements will help to reduce the number of hospital admissions and reduce pressure on urgent care centres and A&E departments.