Critical Incident Declared For Leicester Health Services

On Tuesday 23 January 2024, Leicester hospitals declared a critical incident due to “hundreds of people” being left waiting for “hours” to be seen.

The decision was said to be made in order to “protect patient safety”.

The Trust is advising people to call 111 before taking themselves to A&E at Leicester Royal Infirmary (LRI.)

There have also been traffic issues around LRI due to the demand, with long queues of ambulances seen waiting outside of the emergency department.

It has been reported that the Clinical Decisions Unit at Glenfield Hospital has also been incredibly busy.

Dr Nil Sanganee, Chief Medical Officer of Leicester, Leicestershire, and Rutland Integrated Care Board has said that in addition to hospitals currently seeing a high number of patients seeking care, there are also challenges with ambulance handovers and hospitals are struggling to discharge many patients either home or into care settings.

He apologised for the “longer than usual” waits for care people are currently experiencing.

Leicester Hospitals previously declared a critical incident on 30 December of 2022. At that time, they were also experiencing high patient attendance. The critical incident was stood down 48 hours later.

When a critical incident is declared, measures are triggered including opening up extra capacity in care homes and making extra appointments available in doctor’s surgeries.

Comment

This critical incident further adds to the picture of NHS services struggling to cope.

It is not acceptable that in modern Britain potentially hundreds of patients are being left to wait for prolonged periods of time for emergency, and potentially, lifesaving care and treatment.

These pressures will not go away and therefore more must be done in order to ensure patients are not exposed to unavoidable harm as a result of an understaffed and underfunded NHS.