Bath Royal United Hospital warns over busy weekend

A Bath hospital has warned that it is "extremely busy" because of a large number of elderly patients it is trying to discharge.

The Royal United Hospital said it treated many patients over Christmas suffering from respiratory illnesses.

But some patients now cannot be discharged as they require care at home which is taking time to organise.

Francesca Thompson, the hospital's chief, said it was trying to discharge as many people as possible.

"We strive to ensure we provide the highest standards of care we can and we do not want to cause anyone undue inconvenience or distress whilst they are being looked after," she added.

"However, the hospital is extremely busy and this means, at the moment, some patients may not spend all of their time on the same ward.

"To try to ease the pressures, over the past 24 hours, staff from the RUH and from the local health community have worked extremely hard to ensure we discharge as many medically fit patients as we can to suitable onward care."