A HOSPITAL trust has declared a "critical" black alert as pressure on its A&E reaches breaking point.
Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUH), which runs the Queen's Medical Centre and City Hospital, issued an OPEL 4 on Monday morning.
The alert, which the NHS classifies as a "serious incident", was raised to critical on Wednesday.
According to HSJ, the trust was experiencing "exceptional pressure" due to patient flow and discharges.
Mark Simmonds, NUH’s clinical director of urgent and emergency care, tweeted on Monday that there were 160 patients in the emergency department and, at one point, 14 ambulances arrived within 15 minutes.
A spokesman for the trust told the BBC that although they are seeing slightly more patients than expected, the main problem was those people coming in more seriously ill than normal.
In some cases, these were flu patients.
'Exceptional pressure'
Lisa Kelly, NUH chief operating officer, said the OPEL 4 - previously known as a black alert - came after "a number of days seeing exceptional pressure across the system, with high numbers of very poorly patients arriving at our emergency department."
She added: “I would like to thank our staff and system partners who are working incredibly hard ensuring that our patients are safe and getting the care they need.”
Staff have now been forced to cancel some operations and prioritise those that need urgent care.
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Bosses also called for nurses to take up extra shifts, adding: “Partners are already on site as part of our multi-agency discharge event, so we continue to work closely with them to identify capacity in the community.”
The trust, which was the worst performing against the four-hour waiting time target in the final quarter of 2018-19, reported black alerts during the summer - something unusual for hospitals outside areas that attract a high number of tourists.
Hospitals in other parts of the country, particularly in the South West, have also declared black alerts over the last few weeks.
It comes as doctors warn that more than a million patients face long waits in A&E as the NHS braces itself for the "worst-ever" winter.
The British Medical Association warns patients could face waits on trolleys, as cold temperatures, flu and the impact of Brexit could be devastating - with more than 10,000 more beds needed to cope.
Four in ten GPs are calling for a £25 charge to be put on appointments in a bid to slash demandncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTErKynZpOke7a3jqecsKtfZn1zhZRvam9nnqTBtbXNoJ%2BapV2jtbR5x6iqqaGklrm0ecKroK2hk5a5bq7LmpqkZZGhsrPAjg%3D%3D