Covid: Bournemouth and Poole hospitals stand down critical incident

Critical incidents are declared when health bosses are concerned they cannot provide priority services

Hospitals in Bournemouth and Poole have ended their critical incident status after 24 hours.

University Hospitals Dorset (UHD) declared a critical status on Wednesday amid staff shortages and rising pressures due to Covid-19.

Sickness rates among staff at the trust's hospitals stood at 6.5%.

In a statement on Thursday, the trust said it could maintain critical services but still faced "very difficult weeks ahead".

Critical incidents are declared when health bosses are concerned they cannot provide priority services.

'Robust plans'

UHD said much of the staff absence was because of Covid or related to the pandemic, such as self-isolation or awaiting test results.

"[A review had] considered whether we were able to maintain critical services over the next period and concluded that we had robust plans in place to maintain these services," the trust said.

"However, our hospitals remain very busy and the number of staff we have self-isolating and symptomatic are also still high," it added.

It said it could still return to critical incident status in future if necessary.

There were 1,774 cases of coronavirus per 100,000 people in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council area in the week up to 2 January

For the Dorset Council area, the rate was 1,237 cases per 100,000 people