An NHS hospital trust has declared a critical incident this morning due to more overwhelming demand.
The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust made the announcement for the second time in less than a week.
Local MP Helen Morgan tweeted: "A critical incident has been declared for the second time this week at SaTH.
"Please try only to attend A&E if there is no other alternative."
On Friday the MP demanded a meeting with Health Secretary Sajid Javid after the first critical incident was called.
The NHS trust released a statement this morning which read: “Despite us taking every available option to free up capacity and create additional space, we need to ensure we can continue to prioritise our services and so we have declared a new critical incident.
"This means that we are pausing a very limited number of non-urgent services to allow us to meet the most urgent needs of those we care for.
“Urgent services, including cancer, and time-critical procedures will continue, and we will contact patients directly who may be affected by delays to non-urgent treatment or postponed appointments.
"If you have an appointment in our hospitals but have not been contacted, please continue to attend your appointment as before.
"Any postponed procedures or appointments will be rescheduled as soon as possible."
It went on: “We are very sorry for those impacted by this and we would like to assure you that, despite the challenges faced and some changes to non-urgent appointments, essential services remain fully open for anyone who needs them so if you require urgent medical help, please continue to come forward.
“We would ask that you also continue to help us where you can by ensuring that you are seeking help from the most appropriate health services, and only attending A&E for serious accidents and emergencies. If you are unwell, visit NHS 111 online for 24/7 advice about the most appropriate care for your need.”
This week, a shocking increase in 12-hour A&E waits was uncovered in new analysis of NHS data.
Nearly one in 10 patients waited that long to be admitted in the first week of this month, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has found.
Forty NHS sites participated in its 2021/22 Winter Flow Project, to measure the time from someone arriving at A&E to being admitted.
Official NHS England data only measures the time from a decision to admit, to being admitted to an available bed.
Some 6,582 patients spent over half a day in an emergency department waiting for admission, accounting for 9.2% of all attendances.
The number of 12-hour delays is up by 12% on the previous week, despite attendances increasing by only 0.37%.
