On appearances alone I love the new South Glasgow University Hospital, but I have to say the imagination and attention to details which can make people feel better - like outside views - don't seem to have reached the reception of the adult accident and emergency department.
This waiting room is devoid of most comforts - unless you count the chairs bolted to the floor. Even if you were well, I don't think you could stay there long without feeling miserable or annoying yourself with your own thoughts. You would have to be ill or anxious about a relative to want to sit there. Perhaps that was the intention - to discourage it being used as a refuge.
One might say it is utilitarian, that function has taken precedence over form, but the truth is we don't know if that's the case. Scenes of chaos have been described in the A&E this week with patients lining corridors on trolleys and ambulances queuing to drop off the sick and injured - and that's before the Western Infirmary shuts and its patients also move in.
So the jury is out on how well this new A&E will function.
Bringing in the staff from the Western will have benefits. The A&E is beside a medical assessment unit and there is potential for them to support each other at the inevitably busy times.
For while the hospital is new, the world is the same. The elderly population is still rising with more frail people requiring admission to busy wards. The Scottish Government, and therefore the health boards, still paint a picture of how they are going to meet this need by painting a picture of utopia - as though merely describing frail grannies smiling with highly motivated care staff in houses equipped with buzzers and grab rails will make it happen and mean not half so many folk will be found dazed or confused and need to go to hospital any more.
When I first walked round the empty SGUH A&E in a hard hat I did ask myself: 'Where are the trolleys going to go?' If I had been in charge I would have been tempted to design a nice place to be on a trolley, with extra nursing staff employed with bleeps to staff this ward at short notice.
But, this hospital is all about new ways of working. There are plans to expand capacity when required which I have not seen and plans to ensure people don't wait in that featureless A&E reception for long. Emergency consultant Tim Parke wrote in his blog that, based on projected numbers, patients would have to be dealt with in 57 minutes at peak times to prevent a backlog. He didn't say it couldn't be done, but that it would require funding.
So, in the short term expect to see more stories about "chaos" in the new SGUH A&E. For now, keep an open mind about whether these are teething problems, old issues in a new building or a failure to plan for patient need. And should you need to go there yourself for emergency attention, take along a book or a good old Scottish newspaper to read.
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