An extra 49 beds are to be freed up in Fife’s biggest hospital in a bid to make sure the health service is ready for the demands of winter.
NHS Fife has confirmed ward 15 at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy is to be reopened permanently, a move which will increase bed capacity by 22.
In addition, further intermediate care beds are to be provided at care homes in the region to provide people ready to leave hospital with extra care before they go home.
This will free a further 21 beds and clinicians believe the remaining six will become available elsewhere in the hospital by using Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline for more elective surgery.
A lack of available beds is a major cause of breaches to the Government’s target that no one should be waiting longer than four hours to be seen in accident and emergency.
The situation was discussed at a meeting of Fife Health Board in Kirkcaldy on Tuesday.
The chairman of the operational division which runs Victoria Hospital, David Stewart, asked for an assurance improvements would be in place by the end of September.
“Only last week we were still experiencing terrific difficulties at the Vic,” he said. “Patients were being boarded out into wards not appropriate to them.
“What assurances can anybody give me that significant numbers of these improvements will be made by September 30, because winter starts at the Vic on October 1.”
He added: “We don’t want to experience another winter in the Vic like we have had over the last two years because quite frankly, I don’t think this board could afford it.”
Non-executive director Andrew Rodger said 25% of accident and emergency patients should be seen by someone other than A&E staff.
“The whole of Scotland has a problem with bed flow because 3,000 beds were taken out of the system between 2008 and 2012,” he said.
“We need to make sure people are seen in the right place at the right time and that doesn’t necessarily mean in hospital.”
Acting director of acute services George Cunningham added: “We’ve completed the bed modelling work and we’re going to keep what was our winter capacity open.
“We have a plan to improve our flow through the system and we will start to utilise intermediate care beds.”