Public urged to use NHS services appropriately as critical incident is stepped down across Sussex

The local NHS decided to declare a critical incident on Friday, December 30, ahead of the New Year weekend in response to the ‘extreme’ pressure being seen across services.

An NHS spokesperson said: “Over the last few weeks there has been very high numbers of people needing care and support from services and increasing numbers needing to go into hospital for various reasons, including flu, Covid and other respiratory illnesses. There has also been a significant increase in children needing to be seen and treated for suspected Strep A.

“Going into critical incident allowed the NHS to put in additional measures across services and use all available capacity across the health and care system. It has also been necessary to reschedule some non-urgent operations, procedures and appointments to allow the NHS to focus on patients with the most urgent clinical need. Patients affected have been contacted and had their appointments rebooked as soon as possible.”

The NHS said its services will remain in what is known as ‘business continuity’, which means many additional measures remain in place, but it does mean planned operations, procedures and appointments will be stepped back up and run as usual.

The spokesperson added: “The large number of measures that have been put in place to help the system manage the current pressures include: recruiting more staff to focus on speeding up discharge from hospitals and improving the discharge process, ramping up ‘virtual wards’ which allow patients who would usually require hospital care to be treated safely at home or in their place of residence, creating additional capacity to see and treat children with suspected Strep A within GP services, newly established respiratory hubs and within existing Urgent Treatment Centres.

“Although the system is in a better position, all services remain extremely busy and people may continue to experience some disruption to services over the coming weeks. This is due to the current pressures on services and also the planned industrial action that is expected to take place across ambulance services on 11 January and nursing staff on 18 and 19 January.”

The NHS said it is important the public play their part and ‘Help Us Help You’ to ensure everyone gets the care and support they need.

The spokesperson added: “Think very carefully about choosing the most appropriate NHS service for your needs and only use 999 and A&E departments for serious or life-threatening emergencies, such as chest pain, severe bleeding or breathing difficulties.

“If you do need support and care it may take longer than you might expect to be seen and treated, so please be patient and continue to use the most appropriate service for your needs.

“Please collect family and friends from hospital as soon as they are ready to be discharged and support the discharge process to available community beds to allow acute hospital beds to be freed up for those who need them most.

“Stay away from our hospitals if you have symptoms of flu or Covid or have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, unless it is an emergency.

“Keep yourself protected and boost your immunity with COVID-19 and flu vaccinations if you are eligible.”

NHS Sussex chief medical officer Dr Dinesh Sinha said: “Declaring a critical incident was a pre-emptive and necessary step over the New Year period to ensure services could continue to provide the safest possible care for local people and that staff were better supported during a very busy period.

“This has helped us put additional measures in place to improve what we call the ‘flow’ of patients through our hospitals and services, which has meant the system is now in a more stable position. However, it is important to stress that all services remain very busy and our staff are working incredibly hard to give people the best possible care.

"We urge the public to continue to use the most appropriate service for their needs and to recognise that some people may need to wait longer than you may expect, or want, to be seen and treated. This is necessary to allow us to see and treat everyone and to make sure our sickest patients are getting the urgent care they need.”