Whilst our hospitals do remain in a challenging position due to high demand for urgent and emergency care services and staff shortages driven by COVID-19, improvements in both of these areas mean we are now able to move out of critical incident. This means we are stepping down from the critical incident first declared on Saturday 1 January 2022.
Elective surgery and outpatient appointments continue at our hospitals, and any cancelled over the last few weeks are being rescheduled for as soon as possible. We offer our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused.
We thank our staff who continue to work tirelessly to care for their patients and support their colleagues as we work hard to restore our services, supported by local partners, volunteers and members of the armed forces.
We ask the public to help support us in managing the high demand for services. We ask people to only attend A&E with serious or life threatening illnesses and to seek alternative support for on-going problems or minor injuries. Many illnesses can be better treated by visiting your local pharmacy, calling 111 or visiting NHS 111 online, visiting your local GP, or GP out of hours services, or attending an urgent treatment centre or minor injuries unit.