East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) declared its first-ever critical incident on Monday night due to a combination of high patient demand, hospital delays, and widespread flooding across the region.
The pressures currently being faced by East Midlands Ambulance Service ( EMAS ) - which caused it to declare its first ever critical incident - are a unique combination to those faced in the past, one of its bosses has said. Declaring the incident on Monday (January 6) night, the service said it was facing a combination of pressures around patient demand , local hospitals, and flooding across the region.
A critical incident is the highest alert level used by the NHS and allows bosses to take immediate steps to create capacity. “Our 999 activity was much higher than we were forecasting, we lost a lot of hours with our ambulances being stuck at hospitals unable to offload the patient,' explained EMAS director of operations Ben Holdaway. 'The third factor was the weather and the major incidents declared in our area. This was different to what we’ve seen in the past. 'The NHS is definitely challenged and it’s been a very hard winter so far. But yesterday it was the combination of all the things coming together.' Flooding at the start of the week caused disruption across Nottinghamshire and the wider region, where some critical incidents were called. Mr Holdaway said it does not necessarily result in more jobs but still adds an additional strain on services. 'What it obviously does is slow us down in our ability to respond to patients due to driving conditions and floods on roads,' he said. “We also have to support any major incidents called due to flooding, such as Lincolnshire and Leicestershire.' He said pressures faced in Nottinghamshire matched those in the other areas it covers, which are Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire. “It’s a very similar picture across all of our regions that we cover. It’s very busy, there were a number of outstanding incidents across Nottinghamshire yesterda
EMAS Ambulance Service Critical Incident NHS Flooding Patient Demand Hospital Capacity
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