Hornchurch & Upminster MP, Julia Lopez, visited Queen’s Hospital on Friday to discuss urgent and emergency care in Havering. 

Alongside ward visits with medical teams, the local MP met the Chief Executives of BHRUT, the NHS Trust that runs the hospital, and PELC, the group that runs four urgent treatment centres. 

The visit is the latest in a series of meetings Mrs Lopez has arranged with Havering’s NHS teams to discuss concerns constituents have been raising about the quality and timeliness of urgent and emergency care. 

Mrs Lopez talked through with NHS leadership and medical teams some of the challenges they need to work on together - from demand, staffing, delays and the patient experience to how to bring about improvements. The festive period was particularly difficult for the hospital with lots of very unwell elderly patients in Queen’s with flu and covid.

A number of improvements began last year and will continue into 2023 including:

• the establishment of a Same Day Emergency Care facility which will provide direct access to speciality services without the requirement of a referral or attendance within the Emergency Department. 
• The introduction of REACH teams, where a group of doctors works with ambulance crews to decide on the best care for patients rather than automatic admission to hospital.
• Closer working with NELFT and the police on those going through mental health crisis. 
• The introduction shortly of two modular ambulance handover buildings.
• A reduction in staff agency costs to free up money for more doctors and nurses.
• Work to reduce waiting lists, which are still coming down - BHRUT are in the top three Trusts in London for this work.
• The start of works on the new NHS Hub in Hornchurch to integrate health and social care, and keep people out of hospital - services are due to begin in March 2024. 
• The allocation of £838,069 to the London Borough of Havering and £7.4m to the North East London Integrated Care Board to aid the discharging of elderly patients with social care needs, helping to free beds and therefore improve ambulance handover times.

Mrs Lopez expressed her concerns about last week’s Care Quality Commission report into PELC services, which have been rated ‘Inadequate’, and talked through the plan to address issues raised. Progress has already been made since the CQC conducted their inspection, and Mrs Lopez was shown improvements to the queuing system and triaging of patients to make sure that those with the most urgent care needs are seen rapidly. 

Mrs Lopez also talked to staff in the Children’s A&E about their passion for providing infants, young people and their families with the very best care at times of emergency. 

The Hornchurch & Upminster MP said, ‘I am grateful, as ever, to the time taken by NHS teams to talk through patient concerns and to medical staff for the work they have done to get through some very tough weeks over Christmas. Getting people the best care as fast as possible is our joint priority, and I want to assure constituents of the efforts underway to improve the treatment people receive’.