Public asked to help 'incredibly busy' hospitals

Members of the public are being asked to help reduce pressure on Hampshire's "incredibly busy" hospitals.

A critical incident was declared at Winchester and Basingstoke hospitals on Tuesday after an influx of patients suffering from winter viruses.

The chief medical officer for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Dr Lara Alloway, said all NHS services were "doing their best and working hard".

Winchester MP Danny Chambers called for better social care funding to "free up" beds at the hospitals.

Dr Alloway also called on people to use services "in the most appropriate way" and pick up relatives discharged from hospital as quickly as possible "so the next person can come in".

She said: "The hospitals are under significant pressure so they're having to stop some things and care for people in different ways.

"There are many things that the public could do to help both Basingstoke and Winchester hospitals, but also our other hospitals by using the services that we have in the most appropriate way.

"We will always need to prioritise people who need urgent care."

Critical incidents have also been recently declared in Liverpool, the East Midlands, Birmingham, Devon, Cornwall, Northamptonshire.

They can be declared when health and care services are so busy that special measures are needed to restore normal operations and keep patients safe.

Non-urgent patients have been warned they will face long waits in A&E and have been urged to consider other options, such as contacting their GP, visiting a pharmacy or calling NHS 111.

Dr Alloway said: "Our hospitals are very very busy. The emergency departments are very crowded and we have large numbers of patients we are caring for.

"Our GP services are also very busy but we are doing our best and staff are working incredibly hard to provide the very best care that they can.

"We are experiencing significant and increasing pressure on all our services."

Mr Chambers said the pressures faced by the NHS were "an avoidable crisis".

"It's not acceptable to have a winter crisis every year," he said.

"The hospital has to manage with the resources it has got - we've been arguing for a long time that they need the appropriate resources at the right time."

He said he had been calling for 168 extra social care packages which put support in place for patients to be discharged from hospital.

"We also need to fix the back door of the NHS - which is social care - so people, when they are well enough to be cared for at home, can free up that bed for someone who needs it," the MP added.

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