A MAJOR trade union has called for further hospital closures in Glasgow to be postponed amid concern staff are "firefighting" at Scotland's newest hospital.

 

Following a meeting of stewards, Unison has asked health board NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to halt the transfer of services to the new South Glasgow University Hospital, saying they are receiving "daily reports" of teething problems which raise patient safety concerns.

Their statement was issued as it emerged an official investigation into a patient's care at the SGUH has already been launched following a patient suicide in the hospital last week.

The inquiry is likely to consider how the patient was assessed and observed in the new building, in which every patient has their own bedroom and ensuite toilet.

Mr George Welch, chief of medicine at the new South Glasgow University Hospital (SGUH), said he could offer "complete reassurance that services at the hospital are safe" and added that he was "fully confident" that services could continue moving into the hospital effectively.

Three adult hospitals are being centralised into one at the new SGUH. So far this month patients and services from the Southern General and the Victoria Infirmary have been transferred with the Western Infirmary due to follow this coming Saturday.

The Royal Hospital for Sick Children is also relocating from Yorkhill into a section of the £842m facility next month.

Unison called for a postponement of both the Western Infirmary and Yorkhill moves. This follows reports of ambulances queuing to hand over patients to staff, patients waiting for hours on trolleys in the accident and emergency department and teething problems with the building itself such as sticking doors and water running at the wrong temperature.

Some insiders have even said the staff canteen has insufficient capacity.

While stressing that Unison supports the new building, regional organiser Matt McLaughlin said: "At the moment it feels as though people are firefighting and what we are looking for is a planned, strategic approach which delivers a safe service for patients and staff."

He added: "We need to have confidence that patient safety has not been compromised."

The union called for an urgent meeting with managers "to ensure that staff, managers and patients can work together in a planned and structured way". Mr Welch said a meeting has been set up "to discuss their concerns and reassure them of the robustness of our planning for the migration of adult and children's services."

Mr Welch said: "We have immediately moved to address any issues that have arisen since the hospital became operational but I must stress that patient safety has not been compromised.

"We have acknowledged that some patients have waited longer than we would have wished in the acute assessment unit and emergency department and we are continuing to improve our performance in this area.

"Our medical leads and general managers are working with our clinical teams to ensure the ongoing delivery of safe patient care."

Regarding the suicide, NHS GGC said in a statement: "We can confirm a patient known to mental health services tragically took their own life while in the hospital last week.

"This sad death is being investigated by means of a full clinical review of the patient's care as would be standard practice in all such tragic incidents on NHS GGC clinical premises."

Mr McLaughlin said he could not comment on this investigation.

He explained: "The accepted best practice for single room accommodation is supported by adequate staffing levels and a risk assessment process which identifies if a patient is more or less at risk in a single room." He added that he hoped best practice had been applied to the patient concerned.