A hospital has issued an urgent warning asking people only to visit A+E in an emergency as they are "overflowing" with patients. Bosses at the Royal Bolton Hospital say there are currently four times more people in their accident and emergency department than they have space for.
As a result, waiting times are a number of hours. In a starkly worded message on their Facebook message, the Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, have now asked people not to attend A+E just because they are struggling to access treatment elsewhere, but only to do so it is an emergency or is life-threatening.
"We are overflowing," the trust said. "We know it can be difficult to access the right healthcare service, but just coming to A&E isn’t right. If you’ve had an emergency, an accident or something that is life-threatening, please come to us.
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"If it’s not life-threatening or an emergency, please, please think of others and ring 111 or access 111 online, find a pharmacy or ring your GP. We are here to help, but please help us."
The message was accompanied by a video of clip of a glass being filled with water and then overflowing as it continues to be filled for over 20 seconds.
It comes as an ongoing IT crisis continues to cause issues including delays at A+E at four other major hospitals in the region.
The IT glitches which have hit have hit the Royal Oldham, Fairfield General , Rochdale Infirmary , and North Manchester General have continued for two weeks, forcing appointments and surgeries to be cancelled, as well as causing A&E delays, according to multiple NHS staff.
Experts have been flown in from the U.S.A to find a fix, and the hospitals have moved to a paper system, with documents being handwritten. But in the meantime, patients and staff have told the Manchester Evening News that they are suffering the fallout of ‘severe delays’ to patient care.
