NHS trust critical incident ongoing despite changes

A critical incident at Nottingham hospitals is ongoing, despite some improvements.

Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust - which runs Queens Medical Centre and City Hospital - declared a critical incident on Friday due to "significant pressures" on services.

The trust said that it had seen an increase in older patients - who "often needed to stay in hospital longer than usual" - and an increase in patients with respiratory problems.

On Sunday, trust boss Tim Guyler, said the "situation has improved" but the critical incident remained in place.

The trust previously said there were many patients fit for discharge but the hospitals were unable to do so.

Relatives planning to pick up patients from hospital have been urged to do so as early as possible.

NUH said the high demand was impacting the flow through its hospitals, leading "unacceptable and lengthy waits on corridors in A&E [accident and emergency]".

Guyler, director of strategy and integration at NUH said the situation was being regularly reviewed and was confident the trust would be able to return to normal operations soon.

He said: "Since Friday, colleagues have been working tirelessly to safely discharge hundreds of patients as part of efforts to increase capacity and relieve the pressure on our hospitals.

"Large numbers of staff have also volunteered to do extra shifts, and I want to thank all of our colleagues for their continued hard work, professionalism, and compassion throughout this difficult period.

"The situation has improved since Friday, but we still have large numbers of older patients with complex care needs, and we need to further improve our capacity to treat people with respiratory conditions before we can stand down from the critical incident which we have declared."

Guyler apologised to any patients who had experienced extended waits for care.

NUH previously declared a critical incident in January due to winter pressures, which was stood down after two days.

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