At least a dozen NHS hospitals have now declared ‘critical incidents’ as the health service continues to be battered by flu admissions amid an ongoing ‘quad-demic’ of winter viruses.
Critical incident is an NHS term that’s used by hospitals when they can no longer guarantee that patient care can be delivered safely. Such incidents are typically declared in response to overwhelming demand or infrastructure failure.
Leaked emails to staff shared online show some trusts have taken the drastic decision to lower their requirements for discharging patients and upping them for admissions.
This means that patients who would normally be deemed sick enough for hospital stays are now being sent home.
A wave of flu is believed to be the main driver of pressures on the NHS, with the latest national figures suggesting flu-related hospitalisations are three and a half times what they were at this point last year.
However adding to the strain is the triple-threat of other winter viruses; Covid, RSV and the vomiting bug, norovirus.
Some NHS hospitals have brought in mask mandates for staff, patients and visitors in a bid to slow the spread of the viruses.
Declaring a critical incident can allow hospitals to take measures such as cancelling non-urgent operations and asking staff on leave to return to work to help meet the emergency demand.
Multiple NHS hospitals have now declared ‘critical incidents’ as the health service continues to be battered by flu admissions amid an ongoing ‘quademic’ of winter viruses
Last night, The Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he felt ‘ashamed’ to hear of patients’ current experience of NHS treatment – which includes 50 hour waits in A&E in some hospitals.
Here MailOnline details the full list of trusts to have resorted to drastic critical incident measures.
University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust declared critical incidents last night.
Meanwhile, Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s Royal Liverpool University Hospital, North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust and East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust declared critical incidents earlier this week.
Some patients at Royal Liverpool University Hospital’s A&E department are understood to have had to wait more than two days for care.
Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust declared a critical incident on Thursday last week, NHS Cornwall and Isles of Scilly as well as Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust declared one on Friday and University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust did so on New Year’s Day.
University Hospitals Birmingham declared a critical incident across its four hospitals, Heartlands in Bordesley Green, the Queen Elizabeth in Edgbaston, Good Hope in Sutton Coldfield and Solihull.
An email to staff shared on social media highlighted the difficult decisions medics would now have to make.
This email states ‘extreme pressures’ necessitated the declaration of the critical incident and discharges would be increased by 15 per cent.
The letter continues: ‘A higher level threshold for admitting patients and a lower threshold for discharging patients will be required.’
In an official statement the Trust’s chief nurse Margaret Garbett cited ‘extreme pressures’ from huge numbers of flu patients as key reason for the critical incident.
‘This significant and sustained pressure is due in part to exceptional numbers of patients with flu requiring admission to hospital, this has now reached 311 inpatients and measures including mask-wearing in all departments is also being introduced,” she added.
‘Despite expanding capacity in our wards and in our emergency departments, A&E remains overcrowded with extended waits to be seen.’
Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘Due to sustained pressures at our Basingstoke and Winchester hospitals, we have declared a critical incident.
‘Our emergency departments are facing extremely high attendance levels. Non-life-threatening conditions will result in long waits.’
A statement on the trust’s website added: ‘This decision has not been taken lightly; however, beds across both hospitals are full and attendance at our emergency departments is extremely high, which means there is currently no capacity to admit further patients needing our care.”
It urged people to ‘consider other options’ for non-urgent medical care, such as calling NHS 111, contacting their GP, or going to a pharmacy.
University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust said it declared a critical incident ‘due to significant and rising demand for hospital care at Derriford Hospital.
A statement on the trust’s website said more than 300 people visited the hospital as emergencies on Monday, with almost 200 of those admitted for care as inpatients.
Graphic shows the common symptoms (green tick), occasional and possible symptoms (orange circle) and the symptoms that never occur (red cross) with the common cold, flu and Covid
‘We are particularly seeing high numbers of older patients with respiratory problems exacerbated by the cold weather,’ it added.
‘Our emergency department is currently very full and if you do not have an emergency or life-threatening condition, you may be redirected to other healthcare services.’
Oliver Zuzan, medical director at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, said on their critical incident: ‘We have taken this action to support the safe care and treatment of our patients, which is our absolute priority.’
‘Colleagues are working incredibly hard to treat people as quickly as possible, however some people will experience longer waits while we treat our sickest patients.’
Dr Zuzan added that patients and visitors are also being asked to mask up in a bid to curb the spread of winter viruses.
East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust also declared the first critical incident in its history due to a combination of what it said was ‘significant patient demand, pressure within local hospitals and flooding’.
In a fresh statement, NHS National Medical Director, Professor Sir Stephen Powis, said demand on hospitals is showing ‘no signs of letting up’.
‘The latest data shows flu cases skyrocketed to around 5,000 a day in hospitals at the end of last year and multiple trusts across the country declaring incidents to help them to manage additional strain on services,’ he said.
Wes Streeting said today that that flu is a ‘big problem’ and was causing ‘extraordinary pressure’ in hospitals as he admitted to being ‘as
‘On top of flu hospitals are also seeing continual pressure from Covid, RSV and norovirus cases, as the “quad-demic” continues to increase pressure across services.’
Mr Streeting also said today that that flu is a ‘big problem’ and was causing ‘extraordinary pressure’ in hospitals.
‘We’ve got this extraordinary pressure on flu where we’ve got between three and four times as many hospital beds taken up with flu cases this year than we did this time last year,’ he said.
‘Even so, annual winter pressures should not lead to an annual winter crisis.’
In separate comments he said he felt ’emotional’ and ‘ashamed’ to hear about long waits and patients being passed from ambulance to ambulance.
‘I feel genuinely distressed and ashamed, actually, of some of the things that patients are experiencing and I know that the staff of the NHS and social care services feel the same,’ he said.
Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said flu cases weren’t extraordinary but enough to be ‘a straw that is breaking the camel’s back’.
‘This flu season is not an outlier, but the problem is our emergency care system is so overwhelmed and fragile that a normal flu season – which is what we’ve got at the moment – is creating severe operational difficulties,’ he said.
‘And it would be a mistake to think that this is solely a result of winter viruses. We have been chronically overloaded and overwhelmed for a number of years.
‘It is a significant flu outbreak, but the problem is there’s just no capacity to deal with it. So it is really a straw that is breaking the camel’s back.’
While nearly a dozen trusts have declared critical incidents several others might be on the precipice.
Several, including Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust and Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust, have taken to social media to warn Brits their emergency departments are very busy.
Meanwhile hospitals in Lincolnshire have urged people in the county to avoid travel where possible.
Despite the rising pressures, latest official data shows just under one in four frontline healthcare workers in England have had the flu vaccine this year.
It comes amid concern that another winter virus hMPV could also pile additional pressure on NHS services in the coming weeks.
Official data shows one in 10 children tested for respiratory infections in hospital were positive for hMPV as of December 23.
This is more than double the proportion of very young children that tested positive for hMPV in late November.
While hMPV mostly causes a mild illness that is similar to the common cold, very young children, alongside the elderly and those weakened immune systems like cancer patients, are at increased risk of severe illness.
Concerns came after distressing footage of Chinese hospitals being flooded with hMPV patients.
However, UK officials say levels in Britian are currently what would be expected for this time of year.
The latest NHS data, which covers the week up to December 29, show some 4,500 beds were taken up by flu patients every day last week, up 3.5 times on the same week last year.
Of these, 211 were in critical care — up 69 per cent on the previous week.
More than 4,100 Brits also spent Christmas Day in hospital with the flu. By December 29, this had risen to over 5,000.
Rates of the winter vomiting bug norovirus, meanwhile, are also 40 per cent higher than expected for this time of year.
Experts have warned that the situation could get worse before it gets better as Brits fall ill from cold weather and from infection with viruses caught during socialising over the festive period heaping more potential pressure on NHS services.
