Craigavon Area hospital emergency department 'under extreme pressure'

Emergency departments across Northern Ireland have been under severe pressure

The Emergency Department at Craigavon Area Hospital is working "under extreme pressure" and "far beyond capacity".

The hospital said 138 patients are in its emergency department (ED) with other patients waiting outside in ambulances for extended periods.

The Northern Trust has also said EDs at the Antrim Area and Causeway hospitals are also under the same pressure.

It follows a similar situation at the Ulster Hospital on Monday night and at Antrim Area Hospital at the weekend.

On Tuesday, 87 patients in the Ulster Hospital were fit for discharge, with 54 people waiting for those beds.

However, the beds could not be released because of a lack of community care packages, BBC News NI understands.

'Very challenging'

On Monday night the hospital, on the outskirts of east Belfast, had 164 people in the emergency department and 53 people awaiting admission.

An ambulance parked outside the accident and emergency department at the Antrim Area Hospital

At Craigavon Area Hospital, the Southern Heath Trust said that patients "are waiting a very long time in the emergency department to be admitted to a hospital ward".

"We are facing particular ongoing challenges in admitting patients and managing these pressures is a huge ongoing daily challenge for our exhausted staff," the trust said.

"Reduced access to domiciliary care packages and limited nursing or residential home places, makes it very challenging to meet the increasing demand for support at the point of discharge.

"However, it is vital that where possible, patients leave the hospital immediately when medically fit for discharge."

At 15:00 GMT on Tuesday there were six emergency ambulances queued at the hospital.

• Woman dies on A&E trolley while awaiting admission

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Meanwhile, Sean McGovern, an emergency department consultant at the Ulster Hospital, said Monday night "was obviously a very challenging situation for staff and patients, with patients waiting for a prolonged period of time".

He said the system has been "signalling for some time that this is going to be a troublesome winter".

"I do not think we will be able to solve this problem; we will be able to mitigate," he added.

"There needs to be a relentless focus on capacity and flow."

Sean McGovern said there needs to be relentless focus on being able to discharge patients when they are ready

He added: "We don't have enough care packages in the community to deliver timely discharge of patients from hospital.

"Many patients want to live their last days of life at home [but] cannot do so, they end up in a hospital scenario.

"So we need to get more staff, better training and we need also to upskill in terms of making it real for patients to have hospital at home."

On Monday night, the Department of Health said it remained deeply concerned about the situation in hospitals and across the health and social care system.

• Antrim Area Hospital 'unsafe' on Saturday night

"The fundamental reality is that we have a serious mismatch between demand for care and the capacity of the system to provide it," the department said.

"Hospitals do not have unlimited capacity and it is imperative that when patients have been deemed medically fit, they leave the hospital setting."

At the weekend, an elderly woman who had been waiting several hours to be admitted to Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital died while lying on a trolley in its emergency department.

Also at the weekend, a major incident was declared in the Northern Health Trust because the situation was "unsafe".

People were told not to come to Antrim Area Hospital on Saturday night "in any circumstances".Craigavon Hospital ED 'under extreme pressure'

Jennifer Welsh, chief executive of the Northern Trust said the situation at the hospital would have been "unthinkable" five years ago but now it was "normal business - and not acceptable".