'We should always prepare for the worst' as pressure mounts on our hospitals
People are being urged to only visit the A&E department at Bradford and Airedale hospital, if they need to
People in West Yorkshire are being urged to consider alternative health care, before attending A&E at Bradford and Airedale hospital, as they are experiencing high demand.
If you don't need the emergency department, you can call the NHS on 111, go to your local pharmacist or use self care, this allows staff to help those in an emergency.
At the same time, the trusts are reminding people who are in a real emergency and need their help, to come to A&E.
Karen Dawber the Chief nurse at Bradford Teaching Hospitals tells us Bradford A&E saw someone new book in every 2 minutes on Monday (3rd January).
The demand and staff shortages that the hospitals are facing, is leading to more pressure on other departments too.
Karen explains:
"Before Christmas we had about 40-50 patients with covid in our bed base, today that's more like 65-75 patients, so just in 10 days there's been a real stepped increase.
"Someone was booking in every 2 minutes to the A&E department for about 3-4 hours, that's a lot of people, and they all need caring for and looking after."
Our reporter asked Karen if she thinks a major incident could be declared if pressure doesn't ease, she responded:
"I always say that we should prepare for the worst and hope that we don't end up there, and hope for the best. All the hospitals in our patch have command and control processes in place.
"Our staff are really resilient, but everybody is getting fed up now, whenever you speak to somebody, everyone is feeling a bit down, when's it going to stop, everybody is tired."