Warning that Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth faces a 'serious' situation with up to 600 staff off sick and ambulances left waiting outside A&E for 100 hours

Portsmouth City Council boss, Councillor Gerald Vernon-Jackson, told The News the Cosham site saw ambulances unable to transfer patients into the emergency department on April 4 for a combined waiting time of 108 hours as there were not enough staff or beds available.

And the hospital reported that on April 5, 283 beds at QA were occupied by Covid-19 patients – more than a quarter of its capacity. This was an increase compared to 185 Covid patients two weeks prior, and 152 on March 8.

Speaking yesterday, Cllr Vernon-Jackson said: ‘Things are really getting quite serious at QA.

‘The data I have got today showed ambulances were outside QA for 108 hours [on Monday]. That’s much worse than it has been for a while.

‘The issue they have got is they have very high rates of staff sickness as well as more than 200 beds filled with Covid patients.

‘All the time we have been talking about trying to protect the NHS so it doesn’t collapse – and now it is looking quite serious.

‘This is made worse by staff sickness in care homes meaning patients can’t be discharged there and taking up more beds in hospital.’

According to the hospital almost 600 workers (more than eight per cent of the total workforce) were off sick on April 1.

He added: ‘I would tell residents to only go to QA if you absolutely need to. If there’s anything you can do to take the pressure off that would really help.

‘Where you can, get appointments with your GP, and there’s St Mary’s walk-in centre for other issues.’

John Knighton, medical director at PHU, urged residents to do all they could to support the hospital.

He said: ‘Like the rest of Hampshire and Isle of Wight, the Portsmouth health and care system is under intense pressure at the moment, and we are seeing the impact of high Covid community prevalence on our staff absence levels.

‘To maintain the safety of our services, we are having to make difficult decisions and are prioritising patients who require urgent and emergency care. This means patients who could be seen elsewhere will be redirected and we ask people to not put unnecessary demands on urgent services as this may impact the care others receive.

‘While around a quarter of our beds are currently occupied with patients with Covid, they are not always in because of the virus or as unwell as we saw in previous waves due to the vaccine.

‘I would urge people to get vaccinated and do what they can including isolating when they have symptoms to reduce the risk of spread.

‘Our staff are human too and we need your support now more than ever because the next few weeks we know are going to be difficult.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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