Trust downgrades critical incident at hospitals
The critical incident was originally announced on January 13th
Last week, Colchester and Ipswich hospitals were in the throes of a "critical incident" - but now the hospital trust has called it to a halt.
The critical incident was announced on January 13th, due to increased demand for the hospitals' services.
Adrian Marr, Interim Chief Executive at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said: "We are beginning to see improvements and have downgraded our incident status.
"This means we will continue to closely monitor the situation throughout each day to make sure we continue to deliver safe and compassionate care for all our patients.
"We're really grateful to everyone for bearing with us."
This came after a nationwide surge in flu hospitalisations by more than 50% in a week in December, which the NHS itself called a "worst case scenario".
According to an NHS website, a critical incident is one step down from a "major incident", and can be called in a number of circumstances "where the level of disruption results in the organisation temporarily or permanently losing its ability to deliver critical services."