AS 2 A Strategic Review of Hospital Capacity

Assessment title AS 2 A Strategic Review of Hospital Capacity Weighting 60% Submission dates Please see NILE under Assessment Information Feedback and Grades due Please see NILE under Assessment Information Please read this assessment brief in its entirety before starting work on the Assessment Task. Assessment Context Waterside Hospital Trust (WHT) provides in-patient services to a medium-sized town. During the recent pandemic, the Trust’s general wards were converted to accommodate pandemic patients only. Routine patients were instead treated by a local private healthcare company, Nene Valley Health (NVH), under emergency arrangements that allowed public hospitals such as WHT to secure additional capacity. WHT was grateful for the additional capacity provided by NVH during the first part of last year, but frankly did not need it. The patients admitted at that time were generally younger individuals who recovered quickly. The same could not be said of the winter months, when the patients tended to be more elderly. Once the rate of admissions rose above 250 per week, the additional capacity filled up rapidly. NVH has indicated that it is prepared to make capacity available to WHT for the coming year, providing guarantees can be given that the capacity will be needed. [Images of empty wards at NVH caused some negative publicity at the time]. Forecasts for the next wave of the pandemic have recently been released by the Public Health Authority. These forecasts estimate the range of New Cases in the Community (NCC)