'Ready made' ward to be craned onto Somerset hospital roof

Yeovil District Hospital was put on black alert for almost two weeks in February when it was overwhelmed by demand

A "ready made" ward is to be craned onto the roof of a Somerset hospital to help cope with winter demand.

Yeovil District Hospital was put on "black alert" last year when it was overwhelmed by demand.

This year the hospital is installing a 24-bed modular ward on its roof and leasing 18 beds from a nursing home.

Chief Executive Paul Mears said: "Winter is a challenging time for us and we've taken action to ensure we're well prepared for this winter."

Last February, the hospital was put on "black alert" for two weeks as it struggled to cope with the number of people coming into its accident and emergency department.

What is a black alert?

•The NHS uses a national internal alert system based on the colours green, amber, red and black to rank how busy a local health and social care system is

•Black alert status occurs when a hospital cannot cope with the number of people coming into the accident and emergency department because not enough people are being discharged

•It effectively means the hospital does not have enough bed capacity to cope

This year, to boost bed capacity, the hospital is hoisting a permanent emergency admissions unit onto the roof of its outpatient department in the run-up to Christmas.

It has also contracted with a local nursing home to take 18 beds for six months for patients waiting for nursing home placements or a package of care.

"Last winter was really, really bad for us - part of that was due to the complexity of the patients we were admitting which were a more elderly, frail group of patients and also the sheer numbers," said Mr Mears.

"But we've got 42 beds on top of our current bed base now and we believe that will put us in a much better place to be able to cope with the additional pressures."