Royal Stoke facing "very extreme" pressures in A&E

There's a desperate plea from bosses at Royal Stoke Hospital to only use A&E if there's a threat to life.

It's as the hospital battles extreme numbers of patients most of which are said to be coming in with respiratory illness like flu, covid and norovirus.

Dr Matthew Lewis is the Chief Medical Officer at UHNM Trust, which runs Royal Stoke and County Hospital Stafford.

"This is very extreme. The number of patients is causing us problems and at the moment we're seeing particular problems with viral diseases like flu, covid, norovirus. We continue to work with WMAS, GPs and all other parties to make sure that between us we can provide the best quality care for patients.

"There are patients waiting on the back of an ambulance outside A&E for 4 or 5 hours. 19 ambulances waiting with patients in the back waiting to offload in to the emergency department right now. These are numbers none of us feel comfortable with and we really want to do something to address that. We know people are ringing ambulance's and there are long waits for ambulances to arrive and that's partly because they're waiting outside our emergency department waiting to offload.

"The ask of our patients locally is if you can manage your condition at home or if you can seek alternative advice through your pharmacy, or GP, or 111 or perhaps go to a walk-in centre at Haywood or one of the minor injury units.

"In terms of flu, many cases you can manage it at home by yourself. Rest. Wrap up warm. Drink fluid. Paracetamol. Ibuprofen. Pharmacy and GP. For cases where you need to come to hospital, patients where there's real breathing problems or patients who're coughing up blood for instance or those feeling extremely unwell."

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