Bermuda Hospitals Board has confirmed it is proceeding with “an independent, focused operational assessment” to improve care and ease bed blocking following a Ministry of Health directive.

A spokeswoman said the review would identify “immediate, practical steps that can support our teams and enhance the safety and efficiency of care”.

The Ministry of Health said on Tuesday that the formal directive had been made to BHB to take on a third party for a review following warnings of potentially fatal “critical overcrowding” at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

Edward Schultz, a former Chief of Emergency Services who took his longstanding complaints over the hospital’s poor design to the public last week, called the announcement “a huge win for the people of Bermuda — a win-win for everyone”.

He added: “The hospital also wins — by providing better care, they will improve their own reputation.”

Dr Schultz, who had initially called for an independent commission of inquiry to look into the hospital’s flaws, said he was satisfied with the pledge for an independent review.

“This is exactly what I asked for,” he said. “I just wanted this to be external to the administration of KEMH. I wanted it to be independent and not a political football.”

The BHB statement said administrators recognised “the concern in the community regarding the current pressures in the Emergency Department” and were “committed to addressing these challenges with urgency and care”.

“BHB has been in active discussions with the Ministry of Health, and we are aligned in our shared priority of improving patient flow, reducing bottlenecks and strengthening the overall experience for those who rely on emergency services.”

A spokeswoman added: “Our staff continue to work exceptionally hard under difficult conditions, and we are committed to supporting them while this process is under way.

“We remain dedicated to providing timely, safe and compassionate care for our community.”

Dr Schultz said his complaints over the hospital’s capacity went back 16 years, to the early plans for the new acute care wing — which opened in 2014 as part of a public-private partnership with the group Paget Health Services.

He said his complaints over insufficient beds and the lack of surge capacity in the Emergency Department to accommodate a major medical incident had gone unheeded.

“I felt defeated at every turn by the hospital in addressing something that I thought would injure people and take lives.”

Dr Schultz added last night that the strict terms of the P3 arrangement made the hospital’s space constraints difficult to address with a construction tweak.

“It’s a structural issue, and we’re always going to be plagued with it until we rebuild,” he said. “I don’t think the money’s there to do that.”

For years, BHB has called for the families of elderly patients, fit for discharged but stuck on wards, to take their loved ones home and free up space.

Dr Schultz said an easy fix would be to move the patients with the least health complications out of rooms and into the hospital’s extraneous space, to make way for higher-priority patients.

“You could move these people into the hallways, or use the huge atrium spaces which are purely aesthetic,” he said. “I guarantee you that half those people would leave. Others who truly had no place to go, we could care for them there.”

Dr Schultz described himself as optimistic that the problem would get the attention it deserved, as BHB was given seven days to report back on the scope, methodology and leadership of its review.

He said: “The Ministry of Health and the Government have always been on board with this.”

He added: “This is one of the happiest days of my life. I can actually go to bed tonight and feel in some small way that I have been able to give back to the people of Bermuda.”