Sunday, 24 Nov 2024

Hospital declares 'black alert' after A&E is flooded with hundreds of patients

A South Yorkshire hospital had to issue a rare ‘black alert’ after more than 300 patients visited A&E in one day.

Barnsley Hospital is struggling to keep up with the demand for beds, just days after top doctors from across the NHS warned of mounting pressure from record admissions.

Internal emails show the trust was forced to declare OPEL 4 status – (operational pressures escalation level) – on Tuesday amid a struggle to find beds.

The system is used by the NHS to assess the stress, demand and pressure a hospital is under.

OPEL 4, also known as the ‘black alert’, is the highest warning used when a hospital is ‘struggling or unable to deliver comprehensive care’ and patient safety is at risk.

Barnsley medics were warned by bosses they faced a ‘pretty challenging’ shortfall in beds.

The email revealed that over 40 patients were in the emergency department and 15 of those were waiting for a bed, according to The Independent.

Those figures had almost doubled by the evening, with 80 patients in A&E and 20 waiting for a bed.

It is understood that the spike in patient numbers is due to A&E sickness demand rather than coronavirus, suggesting the delay in people missing out on medical treatment over lockdown is finally catching up on the NHS.

The emails also showed that the hospital’s acute medical unit was full on Tuesday morning, with 12 patients waiting for a bed.

An update later in the day told staff the hospital was being moved to OPEL 4 status as the trust was experiencing ‘severe pressures due to the flow of emergency patients into and through the hospital’.

Staff were encouraged to ‘do everything possible’ to free up beds, including early reviews of all inpatients and ‘encouraging medical teams to facilitate discharge’.

Hospital emergency departments across the country have been experiencing record numbers of patients, raising fears lives could be lost.

Some hospitals are treating more patients now than in the worst days of winter 2019 – the most recent crisis in the NHS before coronavirus.

Tens of thousands of people have had surgeries and treatments pushed back due to the pressures of the pandemic.

Trusts are desperately trying to catch-up but a survey today revealed 73% of leaders are worried this could be interrupted.

A major concern is that a surge in Covid cases and flu could ruin NHS efforts to deal with the backlog of patients.

Professor Neil Ferguson, one of the architect’s of the UK’s first Covid lockdown, today warned sustained restrictions will have inadvertently weakened people’s immune systems and that a flu outbreak could sweep the country towards the end of the year.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Certainly seasonal influenza is likely to be a significant issue coming into the autumn and winter because all the measures we adopted against Covid around the world drove flu to very low levels and as you say, nobody got infected basically with flu last year and so immunity has dropped a little.

‘We can counter that with seasonal flu shots which will be rolled out in the autumn, but I think we do need to be prepared for potentially quite a significant flu epidemic probably late this year, early next year.’

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