Lincolnshire hospitals speak about the huge demand on services

Lincolnshire hospitals are hoping they can move out of critical incident status very soon but warn they could see new levels of demand following yesterdays ambulance strikes.

Significant disruption caused by the walk-out include more people going to A&E departments on foot.

There's also the continued issue of discharging patients with 160 medically fit for discharge using up beds in the hospitals.

We spoke to Andrew Morgan the Chief Executive at Lincolnshire hospitals:

Some people have had operations postponed

"We've had to move people about, we've had to move departments about."

"Sadly some people, not a huge number, have had either their operations postponed or their outpatients postponed."

"A strike on top of a critical incident, they sport of merge all together."

Walks in to A and E rise

He told us: "Less ambulances arriving, probably more walk in arrivals at A and E."

"We've been seeing that over recent weeks anyway so we have to have the right staff, the right triage, the right assessment at the front door."

"Our emergency departments are still really busy."

Discharging some patients is still an issue

"We still have issues with flow, about discharging patients when they're finished their care with us."

"Probably got about 160 or so medically fit for discharge and that's with over a thousand and 60 beds currently open, that's quite a fair proportion."