The NHS trust that runs Nottingham's hospitals has stood down its critical incident one week after it was declared, but said 'severe pressures' still remain. Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH), which is responsible for Queen's Medical Centre and City Hospital, raised the alert on December 29 due to increased demand on its services.
A critical incident is declared when front-line services are facing intense demand and means non-emergency hospital treatment is halted. Bosses at the trust took the decision to stand it down last night (Thursday, January 5).
The wider Nottinghamshire healthcare system remains in a critical incident situation. Michelle Rhodes, chief nurse at NUH, said the hospitals were under the most strain she has ever known. "The daily demand for beds from very poorly people is creating long waits to be seen in our emergency department and long waits to be admitted to one of our wards," she said.
Read more: 'Relentless' NHS pressures the worst Nottingham A&E nurse has seen in 32 years
“The response from everyone at our hospitals to the exceptional pressures we are facing has been immense - we have opened more beds at short notice, deployed staff from elsewhere in the hospital to support colleagues in ED, ensured that patients waiting for beds have access to food and water and we are using hospital at home and remote monitoring services to discharge people as soon as they are medically fit to free up beds."
NUH said the community can help in the following ways:
- If your relative is due to be discharged from hospital and needs to be collected, please do so as early as possible. This will help teams and free up a hospital bed for someone waiting to be admitted.
- Only call 999 or attend A&E departments for serious accidents and for life-threatening emergencies.
- Where the situation is not life-threatening, alternative support will be available through NHS111 online or by calling 111
- Urgent Treatment Centres (UTC) treat injuries including sprains, strains, suspected fractures, bites, cuts, scalds and other non-emergency conditions. Waiting times are usually much shorter than A&E
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