Patients are being urged to seek emergency treatment alone as flu cases continue to soar across the UK leaving some hospitals crumbling under the demand for beds.
Many hospitals are restricting visitor numbers while others are encouraging people to wear surgical masks to limit the spread of viruses. Several NHS trusts have declared critical incidents due to “exceptionally high demands” in emergency departments, with a patient at one hospital forced to wait 50 hours to be admitted to a ward.
Around 5,000 hospital beds in England are occupied with patients with flu. York and Scarborough hospitals requested public support by asking patients to seek medical attention alone where possible.
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Ambulances queue to drop off patients at busy accident departments
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Dr Ed Smith, deputy medical director at York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said emergency departments are “exceptionally busy at the moment”. “While we understand it’s appropriate for a friend or family member to accompany with a child or as a carer for example, if patients can attend alone, this will help free up much-needed space for other patients.”
Accident and Emergency wards had their busiest October on record, but still performed better than at the same time last year, according to the official NHS data. There were 2.36 million attendances at A&E wards in England last month, including 1.45 million in major ‘Type 1’ A&Es. These are defined as consultant led 24-hour service with full resuscitation facilities and designated accommodation for the reception of accident and emergency patients.
The kind of facility you might see on the TV show Casualty. That’s the highest number on record for an October and the second highest for any month at all. Patients going to those major A&Es are still more likely than not to be seen within four hours.
However, 41.9% still had to wait more than the four hour target from arrival to being admitted, transferred or discharged. That’s up from 40.2% in September, but is down from 44.1% in October 2023 and 45.2% in October 2022.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said: “The NHS is going into winter under more pressure and busier than ever before, with another record month for A&E and ambulance services before we even start to see a further spike of pressure caused by colder weather and the spread of winter viruses.
“While we saw 10% more A&E patients within four hours than last year despite the record demand, it is vital that people help us out by only going to A&E or calling 999 in a life-threatening emergency, using 111 for other conditions, and getting their Covid, flu and RSV vaccinations if eligible.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (centre) with Health Secretary Wes Streeting and NHS CEO Amanda Pritchard on Monday
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“However, thanks to the efforts of our amazing staff, these figures also show how they are making use of the latest innovations, including surgical hubs, to bring down waiting lists and deliver 7% more treatments than the same month pre-pandemic, while also delivering more tests and checks than any other September.
“While we continue to treat record numbers and deal with record demand, it is clear that is still much further to go to return performance to the levels patients should expect and we will continue to work with government on the 10 Year Health Plan to address the needs of patients.”
Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: “It is welcome to finally see progress start to be made on the backlog. Since we ended the strikes, we have been ramping up delivery of an extra 40,000 extra appointments every week. The extra investment in the Budget for new surgical hubs and scanners, plus the reforms announced this week to drive up productivity, will cut waiting lists further and get patients seen faster.”