During a week which has featured strike action from nurses and paramedics and the North East Ambulance Service forced to declare a critical incident, regional NHS bosses have urged the public once again not to call 999 unless someone's life is endangered.
The North East and North Cumbria NHS Integrated Care Board (ICB) described the situation facing our region's health and social care services as "the highest levels of pressure ever seen". Health leaders have now reiterated a plea for people to help NHS services prioritise those in the direst need.
Dr Neil O'Brien, executive medical director of the ICB, paid tribute to staff who had worked hard throughout a testing winter week, and thanked members of the public for their support thus far. He said: "We'd like to thank people and communities for their support and the way they have used services during this exceptionally busy period.
Read more: Ambulance workers announce two further strike dates after 'incredibly challenging' day of walkouts
"This has helped us to prioritise patient care for those who are most poorly. We would also like to thank our staff for the way they have responded to a very challenging week with unprecedented numbers of people really needing the help and support from health and social care services."
However, Dr O'Brien said the issues were not about to disappear, and added services remained "extremely busy". He added: "So please only use 999 and accident and emergency departments for life threatening injuries and illnesses. We're working hard to ensure that patients who need emergency care are seen as quickly as possible."
The top medic said NHS teams around the region were also working hard to discharge as many patients as possible as soon as possible. However he warned that patients were likely to experience long waits in the coming days.
He said: "All our services will respond as best we can in providing treatment and have processes in place to ensure patients are cared for, with patient safety as our top priority. Patients who attend accident and emergency departments with non-emergency conditions are likely to face a long wait for treatment.
"Given the additional pressures we know some people have had to wait longer than we would like for care and a few people have had planned procedures postponed. I would ask all our public and communities to please continue to lend your support and kindness to our teams working extra hard during these difficult times.""
In the aftermath of strikes by ambulance service personnel, a North East Ambulance Service executive thanked the public for "using 999 wisely" while paramedics were on strike on Wednesday. Chief operating officer Stephen Segasby said: "We remain at our highest level of alert status because of the continuing unprecedented pressures impacting our ability to respond to patients, although we are no longer declaring a critical incident.
"However, many of the actions we put in place at the start of the week will remain in place to focus our resources on those who are most in need. This includes advising some patients to make their own way to hospital when it is safe to do so."
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