Critical incident stood down at Nottingham hospitals

The trust runs the Queen's Medical Centre and Nottingham City Hospital

The trust that runs Nottingham's main hospitals says it has stood down a critical incident declared eight days ago.

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) announced the move on 29 December due to high demand on front-line services.

It led to non-emergency hospital treatment being halted.

However, a critical incident remains in place for the city and county's healthcare system as a whole.

And Sherwood Forest Hospitals (SFH) NHS trust - which oversees King's Mill, Newark and Mansfield Community Hospitals - also said its critical incident remained in place.

'Immense' response

NUH bosses said the decision to stand down the critical incident was made on Thursday night following discussions between clinical leadership teams at the Queen's Medical Centre and Nottingham City Hospital.

However, they said front-line services remained under severe pressure and urged people not to attend A&E unless absolutely necessary.

The trust's chief nurse Michelle Rhodes said: "The response from everyone at our hospitals to the exceptional pressures we are facing has been immense.

"We have opened more beds at short notice, deployed staff from elsewhere in the hospital to support colleagues in ED [emergency departments], ensured that patients waiting for beds have access to food and water and we are using hospital at home and remote monitoring services to discharge people as soon as they are medically fit to free up beds."