Royal Stoke boss urges people to think twice before using A&E

There's a fresh plea from health chiefs at Staffordshire's main hospital to not think of A&E as the first port of call if unwell or experiencing an ailment.

"The appeal to the public is to realise that our A&E is available for serious accidents or emergencies with health." said Dr Matthew Lewis, Clinical Director of UHNM Trust.

"If it's a life threatening illness or injury, we're open. If your condition isn't as serious as that. Use the other services available in the area.

"If you condition isn't likely to cause long term harm. Go onto the websites for NHS, use 111 either on the intranet or on the phone. Contact the GP, or pharmacy for some conditions as well. That will enable us to treat the patients in A&E that actually need to be there."

Week three of the critical incident

The hospital's currently in its third week of a declared critical incident due to extreme pressures on all its services.

There have also been a number of strikes taking place at nearby clinics and hospitals, not including those at the Royal Stoke and County Hospital in Stafford as they are not partaking in strike action.

Ongoing strikes by West Midlands Ambulance Service and North West Ambulance Service are expected to add further disruption and impact on timely response and treatment times.

Dr Lewis added: "Try not to use A&E when it's not necessary, and likewise, when and if we choose to admit you because we're giving investigations and treatments that need to be carried out on the ward. Just be aware there'll be a time you no longer need to be in hospital, so if you're the patient or relative or friend - be ready to go home."

Speaking to us about the declared critical incident at the UHNM Trust, Dr Lewis said:

"A couple of occasions before we've needed to go into a critical incident and usually they last for a short period of time, such as a couple of days or a weekend, but we've got almost as many flu patients as we have COVID patients.

“We will always do our best for patients and keep patients safe and locally we are working with our NHS and local authority partners to put in place measures to ensure people can get treatment quickly and to identify and utilise any additional capacity to allow us to discharge patients and free up our beds."

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