Critical incident update | News | East Kent Hospitals

We want to thank local people for the support and understanding shown during this extremely busy period for our hospitals.

Since declaring an internal critical incident at the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital, we have seen the positive impact of people choosing the right services for their needs. By using alternatives such as NHS 111, GPs, pharmacies and urgent treatment centres where appropriate, you have helped our teams to focus on caring for the patients who need urgent and emergency hospital treatment the most.

While this support has made a real difference, we want to be clear that we remain in a critical incident and our hospitals continue to experience exceptionally high demand.

We are asking the public to continue supporting our services by:

· Only attending the emergency department for life-threatening illness or injury

· Using NHS 111 (by phone or at 111.nhs.uk) for urgent health advice

· Contacting your GP, local pharmacy or attending an urgent treatment centre for non-emergency care

· Calling 999 in a life-threatening emergency.

Attending emergency departments for non-life-threatening conditions will continue to result in very long waits while we prioritise the sickest patients.

Ongoing actions during the critical incident

As part of our ongoing critical incident response, we are continuing to work closely with partners across the health and care system to:

· Safely discharge patients who no longer need acute hospital care

· Reduce avoidable admissions where it is safe to do so

· Review planned procedures and appointments — unless you hear from us directly, please continue to attend your appointment as planned.

Visiting restrictions at the hospital

We know how important it is for patients to have visits from loved ones while they are in hospital. We need to balance this with the need to protect patients and their visitors from winter viruses as much as possible.

From today (15 January) we are able to re-introduce visiting for patients in these areas of the hospital:

· Cheerful Sparrows Male ward

· Quex ward

· Heart Centre

· Discharge lounge.

We are working to re-introduce visiting to other areas as soon as possible and we will keep you updated.

Important information for visitors

· If you have symptoms of any viruses, including flu and tummy bugs, please do not visit loved ones at our hospitals until you have been symptom-free for 48 hours.

· Please do not visit if you have spent time with anyone with symptoms

· Please clean your hands when you arrive at the ward/department and when you leave

· Please only visit one patient

· If it is possible for only one person to visit at a time, please do so

· If it is possible, please avoid bringing children to visit loved ones at this time.

Children’s, critical care units and maternity areas remain open to visitors. If your loved one is at the end of their life or needs specific support we will ensure you are able to visit and this will be agreed by the ward manager. Virtual visiting will be available for all patients.

Sarah Hayes, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer at East Kent Hospitals, said:

“On behalf of all our staff, I would like to thank our local community for the way people have responded during this challenging time. By using health services wisely, you are helping our staff to care for patients who need us most.

“We are still extremely busy and under pressure, but the continued support and understanding of the public really does make a difference. I also want to thank our teams, who remain committed to providing safe, compassionate care to everyone who needs us.”