A critical incident has been declared at a hospital in East Sussex as a surge in Covid and flu wreaks more havoc on the NHS.
The Chief Executive at Eastbourne District General Hospital has warned that the “hospital capacity is at its absolute maximum. We are now having to look after patients in non-bedded areas.”
The statement added: Due to a surge in flu and Covid-19 patients, and severe challenges with discharging patients, our hospital capacity is at its absolute maximum. We are now having to look after patients in non-bedded areas, while our emergency departments remain full and ambulances are unable to offload their patients.
“This cannot continue, and so last night we declared a Critical Incident here at the trust.”
The Chief Executive added that “we are now struggling to safely deliver the care that our patients need.”
The declaration of a Critical Incident comes when an NHS trust is under a lot of pressure.
It informs staff, bosses and patients that the hospital will be unable to function as normal due to either low numbers of staff or too much demand.
A critical incident can last days or even weeks.
Hospitals across the country have declared critical incidents in recent weeks due to unprecedented demand on their A&E departments and a surge in Covid and flu cases.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak today urged hospitals not to cancel operations despite the growing pressure. He also admitted that waiting times at hospitals are “too long”.
Acknowledging the strain on the NHS, he added: “I know there are challenges in A&E. People are understandably anxious when they see ambulances queueing outside hospitals.”
However, one doctor this week branded the Prime Minister “delusional” after he denied the NHS is in crisis earlier this week.
Dr Vishal Sharma, the chair of the consultants’ committee at the British Medical Association, which represents most of Britain’s doctors, responded furiously.
He said: “For staff working in the NHS or any patients desperately trying to access care, No 10’s refusal to admit that the NHS is in crisis will seem simply delusional.
“To try to reassure us that ministers are confident the NHS has all the funding it needs, at a time when families are seeing relatives left in pain at home or on trolleys in hospital, is taking the public for fools.
“Moreover, the attempt to portray this winter’s crisis as the result of the pandemic and not the result of more than a decade of political choices to reduce investment in the NHS and its workforce is little more than an attempt to rewrite history.”
