'Critical incident' levels at two Staffordshire hospitals blamed on winter pressures is now over

Bosses at University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust which includes Stafford's County Hospital said the situation has now been de-escalated.

The Staffordshire trust which also treats trauma patients from the Black Country area remained at "critical" levels from January 1 until this was dropped to "business continuity incident" levels on January 11.

The trust stated: "Services at UHNM have been under extreme pressure since before Christmas which resulted in us declaring a critical incident on New Year’s Day.

"Thanks to the hard work of all our staff and the actions taken to manage the demand on our emergency and urgent care services meant we were able to de-escalate to business continuity incident last Saturday.

"Continued efforts this week have meant that we have now stood down our incident. We are still experiencing winter pressures, as you would expect for this time of year."

All hospital trusts across the region have appealed to residents to only visit A&E in a serious or life-threatening emergency situations that require immediate medical attention, such as chest pain, loss of consciousness, acute confusion, severe blood loss, serious burns, broken bones, suspected stroke.

None of the Black Country hospitals are currently in critical incident status despite a difficult start to the year. Borough health chiefs have introduced a ambulance drop off time of 45-minutes at A&Es between 8am and 8pm in a bid to ease waiting times.  

Birmingham's hospitals introduced an online live waiting time system and visitors have been advised to wear face masks. 

Accident and emergency units have been battling high demand amid rising respiratory related cases and a so-called quad-demic relating to influenza, Covid-19, norovirus and syncytial virus (RSV). Several across the country declared critical incidents.