THURSDAY, 4 JANUARY, 2023

Immediate release

Tayside healthcare staff’s phenomenal response over the festive holiday

It’s been a busy festive period for NHS Tayside and the three local Health and Social Care Partnerships in Angus, Dundee and Perth and Kinross.

Health and care teams across the whole system have seen a rise in seasonal illnesses in the community, coupled with an increase in hospital admissions over the Christmas and New Year break.

However, our teams delivering care for our communities and in our hospitals have really gone over and above to keep services running smoothly and ensure that we can continue to provide you with the best possible care and treatment. We have cared for thousands of patients in Tayside through primary care and GP contacts and those who have needed hospital help and treatment.

The GP and Primary Care Out-of-Hours service had more than 3700 contacts with patients through face-to-face appointments, home visits and advice calls, with 1825 contacts during the Christmas extended weekend holiday (22-26 December) and 1879 over New Year (29 December - 2 January). The weekends alone saw almost double the usual Friday-Sunday activity, and the public holidays were also very busy for the service.

It was also a busy time for our staff in the Emergency Departments and Acute Medical Unit, as well as across all our inpatient wards in Ninewells and Perth Royal Infirmary over that same period. More than 2000 people attended A&E over the two weekends and into the public holiday Monday and Tuesdays and there were 1311 emergency inpatient admissions over these days. In addition, our ED consultants fielded more than 1200 calls from colleagues in the Out-Of-Hours service and the Scottish Ambulance Service to ensure that patients received the right care in the right place, first time.

This healthcare professional to healthcare professional help and advice line means that the most senior clinicians in the hospital can give advice directly to primary care doctors and paramedics about where and how best to manage patients. The New Year period was particularly busy with more calls received in the four-day extended weekend than in an average week.   

All the parts of the system need to work together to make sure the flow of the hospital and primary care services is as smooth as it can be with everyone working together to unblock the bottlenecks when they arise when there are spikes in activity.

This is where the Health and Social Care Partnerships played a key role in making sure patients were safely discharged home or to an appropriate community setting when they were assessed as ready to leave hospital.

Operational Medical Director Dr James Cotton paid tribute to staff for the impressive whole system response: “I would like to say a huge thank you to all of our fantastic staff in NHS Tayside, the Health and Social Care Partnerships in Angus, Dundee and Perth and Kinross, and colleagues in the Scottish Ambulance Service and NHS24 who have stepped up and played their part.  

“All of our teams would also like to thank you, the public, for following our advice about self-care, ensuring you are well stocked with common medicines, and knowing the right place to go for different health needs. This has helped us ensure that we have beds available to care for the most unwell people in hospital when they need us. 

“Our teams are planning for another very busy period over the next few days and weekend, and then we will continue to face the ongoing pressures of winter for the next month or so. However, our whole system Winter Plan is now in full swing and teams are as prepared as they can be. Our focus now is to all keep working together to ensure health and care services are there for you and your families when you need them.

“We also have a request for the public to please keep helping our teams by visiting www.keepwellinwinter.scot.nhs.uk for lots of useful advice on how to look after you and your family’s health this winter and where to get the right care in the right place.”

Contact:

Louise Wilson

NHS Tayside Communications

(01382) 740718