YOUR reports and editorial last week (January 18 and 22) raised some major issues about bed management in the local National Health Service.

Since the New Year the level of emergency admissions to York District Hospital has been very high.

Wards normally used for elective care have been filled with patients requiring emergency treatment.

However, despite these pressures, our staff have coped very well and ensured that all emergency cases have been cared for, and urgent surgical and cancer cases have also been treated.

Many patients are waiting to be transferred from the hospital to residential nursing home care. This prevents us from responding to patients' needs as effectively as we would wish.

We would prefer to move delayed discharge patients to more appropriate facilities and free up capacity to treat those on our waiting list.

We also recognise that this situation adversely affects the morale of our highly-committed and skilled staff.

While these problems are well defined their resolution is complex. Progress is being made by careful planning, co-ordinating the efforts of the trust and our colleagues in York and North Yorkshire Social Services, the Selby and York Primary Care Trust and in private nursing homes.

All involved are working hard to minimise the effects of the present situation and will reduce delayed discharges considerably when the targets set for York by the Social Services Inspectorate are met.

Everyone in the York trust is well versed in, and highly focused on, the resolution of these problems. We are all committed to working with our public and private sector partners to ensure appropriate care is provided as speedily and as comprehensively as possible.

Simon Pleydell, Chief Executive and Professor Alan Maynard, Chairman, York Health Sevices NHS Trust,

Bootham Park, York.

Updated: 10:24 Thursday, January 31, 2002