Second critical incident declared at Staffordshire hospitals due to 'extreme pressure'

University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust (UHNM), which runs County Hospital in Stafford and Royal Stoke University Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent, announced it had taken the measure on Tuesday (January 21).

Bosses said pressures were at their highest in the emergency departments at the hospitals, with patients facing waits to be admitted to beds.

Katy Thorpe, UHNM chief operating officer, said in a statement on Tuesday: "We have seen even greater demands on our services in the last 24 hours and we are currently under extreme pressure.

“We have therefore taken the decision to declare a critical incident. This helps us to take additional measures to maintain safe services for our patients.

“We will always do our best for patients and keep patients safe and locally we are working with our NHS and local authority partners to put in place measures to ensure that people who need hospital and emergency care can get treatment quickly and to identify and utilise any additional capacity to allow us to discharge patients that do not require hospital care.

“As anticipated, the pressure is greatest in our emergency departments, who are facing on-going challenges as patients are unable to be admitted to beds promptly.

“During this time the emergency departments will continue to see the sickest patients first, which means for some patients there may be much longer delays for their treatment."

The trust also declared a critical incident on New Year's Day as a result of winter pressures but this was later stood down, as bosses said they were able to "de-escalate to business continuity incident" levels on January 11.

Ms Thorpe added: “We continue to ask the public to help us by only using A&E in a serious or life threatening emergency and for their help when we’re discharging their friends or loved ones to ensure they’re picked up from hospital as soon as possible and have everything they need at home.

“I would like to thank our staff for their on-going efforts during this extremely challenging period and the public for their understanding and co-operation.”

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.

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).