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Leeds General Infirmary’s trauma centre brings more patients
Hundreds more seriously hurt patients are set to be treated in Leeds.
Leeds General Infirmary could receive 500 extra patients who have major, often life-threatening injuries each year.
The hospital is to be designated a Major Trauma Centre as part of a national shake-up.
An additional 30 lives a year could be saved, while more people should recover fully – currently 75 per cent of major trauma patients are left disabled.
But NHS bosses are still ironing out how to plug a funding gap of up to £5.3m.
Helen Barker, divisional general manager for general surgery at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, told councillors: “It will improve outcomes and it will save lives. We have got funding issues which we are confident we will resolve, but we have not resolved them at the moment.
“We feel it’s the right thing to do, to be the centre and take the more critically-ill patients, but we have a responsibility to the patients of Leeds to ensure it’s not detrimental.”
The Government wants major trauma networks to be set up across the country to provide quicker diagnoses and specialist treatment.
Work started in 2009 on making changes towards LGI becoming the Major Trauma Centre for West Yorkshire. Smaller hospitals will host Trauma Units.
That would mean patients, such as those badly hurt in car crashes or who have suffered serious head injuries, would be assessed and taken to the centre immediately – unless they needed to be stabilised at the nearest hospital first.
Patients from outside Leeds would be transferred back to their local hospital as soon as they were well enough, after up to seven days at LGI.
Projections show an estimated 521 extra trauma patients being treated in Leeds, an increase of 68 per cent, from 758 to 1279 a year.
Members of Leeds City Council’s Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Board heard that early calculations suggested Leeds hospitals might have to find up to £5.3m above what would normally be expected to be paid for the service. Talks are currently underway about funding.
Ms Barker added: “This has to offer a better service to the patients of West Yorkshire and therefore we have to iron it out.”
The network is being phased in from April and health bosses are monitoring numbers of patients to see how many are being brought to LGI.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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