A critical incident has been declared by Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust today (Tuesday, December 20) because of extreme and sustained pressure on all services across Portsmouth and South East Hampshire.

The Trust is working closely with its partners across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight who are also taking all critical incident actions to provide capacity in all services.

The current situation is:

• All beds and escalation capacity are full with patients admitted to hospital

• The QA Hospital's Emergency Department is full with patients requiring a bed, leaving no space for emergency treatment

• The number of patients in acute beds who could be more safely treated elsewhere has increased

• Record numbers of attendances to the Emergency Department, both by ambulance and patients walking in

• Excessive delays for patients requiring emergency treatment both waiting for a response in the community and to be treated in the Emergency Department

• A significant increase in patients attending Emergency Department and in hospital beds with infections including COVID-19 and flu

Dr John Knighton, Medical Director at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, said: "The Emergency Department is full of patients requiring admission to the hospital resulting in long delays for patients arriving by ambulance.

"The length of delays being experienced and the lack of capacity to treat emergencies puts patient safety at significant risk. That is why we have declared a critical incident today - to prioritise emergency capacity for the treatment of emergency patients only.

“We apologise for the delays accessing urgent services, but rest assured we are doing everything in our power to meet the need.

"We need the local community to help us by helping patients get home as soon as possible and only using the Emergency Department for life threatening conditions and injuries.

“Our immediate priority is to ensure there are beds available for our most seriously ill patients and we will be focusing on safely discharging as many patients as possible. We ask that families and loved ones support us with this and collect patients as soon as they are ready to be discharged.

“We also urge you to not attend the ED unless it’s an emergency. Non-emergency attendances cannot be seen and we advise people to visit NHS 111 online."

The Trust will be reviewing the situation regularly and thanks the community for its support during this difficult and busy time.