Birmingham hospitals are 'not in the clear yet'
They called a 'critical incident' last week due to the pressures they were facing
An NHS Trust which runs several hospitals in Birmingham said they are 'not out of the clear yet', despite standing down a 'critical incident' on Friday (10th January).
They called the incident on Tuesday (7th January) due to the extreme pressures their hospitals were facing.
University Hospitals Birmingham said the pressures were down to the exceptional numbers of patients with flu requiring hospital admission.
"Every single bed was in use"
Margaret Garbett is Chief Nurse at the Trust:
"I do not think we are in the clear, but I do not think we are on a slippery slope either. We are continuing this week with a lot of the hard work that was done last week.
"That is working with social care and the community trust, to make sure that patients get to the right place.
"Every single bed was in use, we opened extra capacity and all of that was in use. We had patients waiting a really long time in A&E to access a bed," she said.
University Hospitals Birmingham runs the Good Hope Hospital, Heartlands Hospital, Solihull Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.
What should you do to avoid using A&E?
They said they used extra staff to get people out of hospital quicker, which took the pressure of the hospitals.
"People might think we should be doing this every day. We absolutely should, but we have finite resources.
"We had to cancel some of our education programmes, to get people on the frontline," said Garbett.
She told us that the key is to avoid A&E, unless you are seriously ill or in a life-threatening condition:
"Local pharmacists can provide a great service. Especially if you have a sore throats, ear infection, or anything else that requires antibiotics.
"If you are struggling to know which service is best, the NHS 11 service will direct you to the right place," she said.