Queen Alexandra Hospital still under ‘extreme pressure’ and critical incident mode with volunteers stepping in to help beleaguered medical staff

Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust is continuing to run the hospital site in critical incident mode to protect patient safety due to an over-full hospital and emergency department. The hospital declared it was in critical incident mode on December 20 and then again nine days later, since which time it has remained in the high alert mode.

Like many areas across the country, large numbers of people in Portsmouth and south east Hampshire need hospital or emergency care which has put extreme pressure on the hospital’s capacity.

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People are being advised to only use the emergency department for life threatening illness or injuries. Otherwise other services such as the Urgent Treatment Centres, NHS 11 online, GP or pharmacies should be used. The trust has also urged for help to get patients home when they are ready and for staff to be treated with ‘kindness and respect’ with the hospital ‘doing everything we can to care for you as safely and quickly as possible’.

Dr John Knighton, medical director, said: ‘We are still running our services in critical incident mode. This means we can prioritise urgent and emergency care, redeploy staff to the areas with the greatest need and treat additional patients in our wards and hospital spaces that we wouldn’t do normally. All of our staff are focused and committed to ensuring we can care for everyone who needs us as quickly and safely as possible.

‘We would like to thank the community, patients and their families for their patience and support. Your experience as a patient at PHU may not be up to standards that we aspire to, or you expect from us. However, we would like to reassure you that our clinical standards and patient safety will not be compromised.’

Due to the number of patients who continue to need the hospital, new patients who need hospital care and the large numbers of people arriving at the emergency department there is pressure on bed capacity throughout the hospital, resulting in delays in admitting patients to wards. A number of actions have been put in place to help including opening up additional beds, setting up a larger discharge lounge for patients ready to return home, redeploying staff to clinical areas and wards and ensuring Same Day Emergency Care units are operational to care for people.

Liz Rix, chief nurse, added: ’Patient safety is our top priority, and our staff are doing everything they can to treat everyone as quickly and safely as possible. Volunteers have stepped up to help us feed patients, move patients to wards, and get water and drinks to ensure patients stay hydrated.

‘And we are also working with our partners and teams in the community to avoid hospital admissions and find suitable accommodation and packages of care so people can return back to their home as soon as possible. Thank you to staff, patients, families and the wider community for your continued support and help.’