No bed available NHS surgery cancelled

[Glowinglights]

Hi all,
Can I ask your help in settling a discussion please?
My planned surgery last week was cancelled very last minute (45 min before I had to be in hospital) due to no bed being available.

Now I think that means no bed with a nurse is available.
DH thinks there is literally no bed available as otherwise they would have said ‘staffing issues’

I will ask them in 2 weeks when I (hopefully) will be able to have the surgery, but what do you all think? No bed at all, or no bed with a nurse being able to look after the patient??

Thanks for any input 😊

No bed 🛌

A 'bed' means a staffed bed. Not much point in having a hospital bed if you can't actually service a patient with it.

Is it the sort of surgery which might require high dependency care immediately afterwards?

Depends - if your surgery meant you need a HDU / ICU bed it could well be no nurse for the bed , if it’s just a general surgery type thing I would imagine it meant no bed .

No physical bed is just as likely. I work in A&E and we currently have patients waiting for more than 12 hrs for a bed. The hospital loathes cancelling surgeries and based on bed meeting will do their utmost to avoid it. When you have so many people needing beds because they are so unwell and can no longer accept new ambulances it impacts the community who are calling for help. In the end they cancel surgeries because they don’t have anywhere or anyone to look after these patients. So no bed is very likely.

Sorry to hear that, I think it’s bed with adequate support/in the right ward. Your surgery is obviously a bit more complicated as the last few I’ve had have been day cases so just from surgery-recover-day surgery ward-home

It’s actually our dd ‘s surgery so paediatric ward afterwards (1 night after surgery).

I'm not sure it matters tbh. Whether there were technically no beds, it's not enough staff to care for more patients, there wasn't capacity for your at the hospital sadly.

It could have been something as simple as someone needing to stay in hospital longer or an emergency came in.

I hope you get your operation soon.

In my trust (I work in theatres) it would literally mean no bed unfortunately. We don't tend to cancel surgery due to no staff, we crack on on reduced numbers.

Usually in Paeds where I work cancelled surgery is because there is no physical bed as full or no staff to staff the surgical area.
We have been very busy recently too so no bed availability would make sense.

DH has had his cancelled recently for staff shortages - he's due in again on Friday. He's been on the "urgent" list since October, and his medication isn't managing his heart rhythm so we're absolutely terrified they're going to cancel again

He can't go private either as no regional hospitals offer ITU/HDU if he needs it.

Nurse here... No bed does mean no bed, they would say staffing if that was the issue

Most likely no physical bed

No, it doesn’t really matter as cancelled means cancelled - the woman who called was very apologetic and fortunately we got a new date straight away.

We were just talking about it and wondered if it was literally no bed being free in the whole hospital (well, the correct ward at least) or a staffing problem.
More out of interest and discussing how these things work (and how much chance there is that the next time will be cancelled as poor dd is very anxious about it all)

@Glowinglights if it had been on my ward last week it was because there was no physical bed. We are rammed. But actually it will have been staffing issues.

It definitely means no staff, i dont know why they say no beds, often when they say it there are many empty bed just no one to staff them,

DSs scoliosis surgery (10 hours) was cancelled 3 times before it was done, as they had no beds, but it was an ICU bed he needed, or at least an HDU one. Its a staffed bed, but wards have a limited number and when the ward is full, they say no beds.

I had a surgery scheduled for 25th May, and it was cancelled a few days before for similar reasons. No reschedule date yet. I don't see things improving soon, as Jubilee celebrations may have led to an increase in A&E visits.

Can't say what the chances of being cancelled again are. But we try really hard not to cancel at all. Sometimes it just can't be helped. I don't know what other childrens hospitals have been like recently, but we have been overwhelmed with very sick children, and there has been little movement. Easing up a bit now though.

Sorry to hear that , how stressful.
hopefully it will go ahead on Friday 🤞

No sorry in my area most of the time when we say there is no bed because there is no physical bed, sometimes staffing is an issue but it’s very very very last resort to cancel surgery because of staffing. Trusts really hate cancelling surgery.

Through covid it’s been cancelled due to staffing in theatre on occasion ( everyone having covid!) but 9/10 it’s because our beds are just full!

@Glowinglights unfortunately there is no guarantee on it not being cancelled in future. Hopefully not. Maybe contact her consultant secretary and ask about re listing , times etc?

Thanks to everyone who responded and good luck to other people awaiting surgery.

And good luck & thank you to all NHS staff working on the wards - it must be full on all of the time, by the sound of it ❤️💐

We’ve got a lot of sick children at the minute so it really can mean no bed, especially if it’s HDU. My hospital really tries not to cancel, even when staffing is awful as the waiting lists are so big.

I work in surgery. No bed means we have no physical bed. In my area we have 101 beds and sometimes they are all full despite our best planning as we manage emergency and elective cases. This happens usually because we have had more emergency admissions than expected, or because we can't discharge patients safely so they are staying longer than planned.

If you are one of my patients, I'm really sorry.

I will also add, if we have cancelled you on the day we have a statutory obligation to complete your surgery in 28 days. On any day that we don't have sufficient beds I am the decision maker on cancellations on my area, taking into account clinical priority and length of wait, and I would also consider previous cancellations and would prioritise you if I could