Staffordshire's main hospitals declare critical incident

Two hospitals in Staffordshire have declared a 'critical incident' due to what they have called 'extreme pressure' since the Easter holiday period.

Declaring this status means Royal Stoke University Hospital and County Hospital in Stafford can take additional steps to try to maintain safe services.

Ann-Marie Riley, the Trust's Chief Nurse said: “We are currently experiencing extremely high demand for all our services. Both Royal Stoke University Hospital and County Hospital in Stafford have been under extreme pressure since the Easter holiday period.

“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.

“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.”

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