Four NHS hospital trusts have been forced to declare critical incidents due to “significant and sustained pressures” after a surge in flu and norovirus cases. The critical incidents in Surrey affect three trusts – Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust, Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, and Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust.
East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust has also declared a critical incident due to “sustained pressures” at the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Sky News reported.
The trust also said its hospitals were experiencing “exceptionally high demand, driven by a continued high admission rate and a large number of patients with winter illnesses and respiratory viruses” and added that “beds across our hospitals are currently full and attendance at our emergency departments is extremely high, meaning there is very limited capacity to admit further patients who need acute care,” Sky also reported.
Last week, an average of 361 hospital beds were filled each day last week by patients with diarrhoea and vomiting or norovirus-like symptoms. This is up 27% from the previous week’s average of 284 patients, but below the recent peak of 427 patients in mid-December.
On Thursday (January 8), a sharp increase in the proportion of patients experiencing long waits in ambulances outside hospitals in England before being handed over to A&E teams. Some 33% of patients arriving by ambulance at hospitals last week waited at least 30 minutes to be handed over. This was up from 18% the previous week and is the highest figure so far this winter.
Some 12% of ambulance handovers last week, or 11,805 patients, were delayed by more than an hour, up from 4% the previous week and also the highest level so far this winter. Sky News also added that NHS Surrey Heartlands said the decision to declare critical incidents reflects “a level of NHS escalation that enables trusts to focus on critical services”.
South-east England has seen a 24% jump, up from 290 patients to 360, while in eastern England the number of patients has risen by 17%, from 338 to 396. There have been smaller percentage increases in north-west England (up 8% from 253 patients to 274) and the Midlands (up 6% from 564 to 597), while in north-east England and Yorkshire the figure is broadly unchanged, up 0.2% from 628 to 629.
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