20/08/2010

Well practiced plans were brought into action when there was a power failure to parts of Gloucestershire Royal Hospital on Saturday March 13th. 

The brief outage occurred during the installation of a 4th generator to increase capacity to the site.

The Trust’s first priority when there is a power failure is to maintain an uninterrupted power supply to essential patient areas.  Areas such as the Intensive Care Unit and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit have backup electrical systems which automatically take over from mains electricity in such an event, ensuring that there is an uninterrupted power supply.

Powered suction only was temporarily lost in ICU, where specialist staff are fully trained to deliver manual suction when required.  Neonatal Intensive Care and SCBU were not affected. 

The Board Papers refer to a single patient in an operating theatre at the time of the incident.  The operation itself had been completed and the patient was being closed after surgery.  The patient was fully informed following the incident, but was in no danger at any time.

The Trust’s procedures for managing a power failure were immediately initiated by Mrs Evelyn Barker, Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer, alongside senior managers and Trust engineering staff.  In line with procedures, Ambulances were standing by to transfer any affected patients, but these were not required due to the brevity of the incident.  There was no compromise to patient care at any time.

The Trust continues to work with specialist electrical contractors to ensure robust maintenance and Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) testing regimes are in place.