A major London hospital has declared an internal major incident due to excessive patient volumes and overcrowding.
The event at the Royal London facility was labelled a major internal incident this morning due to a large number of patients needing a bed, some of whom had been waiting for more than 12 hours, and the facility is full.
In an email to staff, sent at around 9.30 am hospital administrators requested clinicians to assess all inpatients for patients who could be safely discharged to create room. They also stated that social care services (provided by the North London Commissioning Group, or ‘NCL’) are excessively busy, putting the situation at risk of “deterioration.
It stated that Resus was full with 30 patients in ITU and 30 unplaced DTa’s
CONSULTANT ONLY DECISION TO ADMIT FROM OUTPATIENTS. FULL CAPACITY PROTOCOL AND BOARDING IN USE.
“A senior decision maker must re-evaluate all patients and update the expected discharge date and plan in epic.” Please do everything necessary to ensure that patients are medically fit or discharged as safely and swiftly as feasible.”
It comes as hospitals are under increasing strain as a result of delayed discharges, in which patients are unable to leave their beds due to a lack of facilities or community support. This has a significant knock-on impact, resulting in a shortage of hospital beds, higher wait times in A&E, and delays for ambulances waiting to transfer patients.
