UK -UHNM (University Hospitals of the North Midlands) declares Critical Incident and announces measures to protect patient safety

[Mary Wilson]

Dr Matthew Lewis, UHNM Medical Director, said: “We are currently experiencing extremely high demand for all our services. Both Royal Stoke University Hospital and County Hospital in Stafford have been under severe and sustained pressure over the Christmas period and this challenging situation is likely to continue into the New Year bank holiday period.

“We have therefore have taken the decision to declare a critical incident. This allows us to be able to take additional steps to maintain safe services for our patients.

“We will always do our best for patients and keep patients safe and locally we are working with our NHS and local authority partners to put in place measures to ensure that people who need hospital and emergency care can get treatment quickly and to identify and utilise any additional capacity to allow us to discharge patients and free up our beds.

“As anticipated, the pressure is greatest in our emergency departments, who are facing on-going challenges as patients are unable to be admitted to beds with those patients arriving waiting in a queue to be seen.

“During this time the emergency departments will continue to see the sickest patients first, which will lead to long waits for longer than 12 hours for some patients.

“We continue to ask the public to help us by only using A&E in a serious or life threatening emergency and for their help when we’re discharging their friends or loved ones to ensure they’re picked up from hospital as soon as possible and have everything they need at home.

“I would like to thank our staff for their on-going efforts during this extremely challenging period and their public for their understanding and co-operation.”
30 Dec 2022 11:56

https://www.uhnm.nhs.uk/latest-uhnm...announces-measures-to-protect-patient-safety/

 

[Mary Wilson]

Ambulance staff reportedly urged to conserve oxygen amid ‘twindemic’

Surge in flu and Covid-19 increasing demand in parts of England for small cylinders used in ambulances and A&E

Fri 30 Dec 2022 18.43 EST
Last modified on Fri 30 Dec 2022 20.15 EST

Nadeem Badshah

Ambulance staff in parts of England are reportedly being urged to conserve oxygen supplies due to a surge in demand for the small cylinders used in ambulances and A&E departments amid a “twindemic” of flu and Covid.

South East Coast ambulance service foundation trust warned staff of a shortage due to the high number of patients with respiratory conditions, adding that “suppliers are reporting that this is higher than during the first wave of the Covid pandemic”, according to the Health Service Journal (HSJ).

East of England ambulance service trust also told staff that oxygen suppliers were unable to fulfil their orders and supplies would need to be “carefully” managed for the next few days, HSJ reported.

The trust said in a message, seen by the journal, to staff on Thursday: “Oxygen suppliers, including BOC, are currently unable to supply sufficient numbers [of small cylinders] to fulfil our orders.

... An NHS spokesperson said while there was no shortage of oxygen, it was seeing significant demand for portable oxygen due to increased numbers of patients with respiratory viruses such as flu and Covid-19.

The latest data shows the number of flu patients in hospitals in England has risen 79% in the last week, with an average of 3,746 people in hospital across the seven days to 25 December. This is up from 2,088 the previous week.

The type of cylinder affected usually provides about 30 minutes of oxygen on full flow and is widely used in ambulances and also when patients are kept in A&E or in corridors waiting to be moved to beds with access to the normal piped supply.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...nserve-oxygen-amid-twindemic?CMP=share_btn_tw