Covid-19: Hospital and ambulance services struggle with huge demand and staff illness
Hospitals and ambulance services in England are facing “extreme pressures” and a high volume of staff absences, forcing some to declare critical incidents and others to warn of 12 hour waits for patients in hospital emergency departments. Portsmouth’s Queen Alexandra Hospital and South Central Ambulance Service both declared critical incidents on 6 April, with the hospital warning, “Our beds are full and our emergency department remains full with patients requiring admission . . . We are only able to treat patients with life threatening conditions and injuries.”1 The ambulance service reported a “large volume of calls being received throughout the day and into the night and increased challenges in releasing some of our ambulances from busy acute hospitals
The BMJ - April 11, 2022View the full story here: https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj.o950