Critical incident – Immediate action required

January 4, 2023

We are currently seeing immense pressure on our services and have had to declare an internal critical incident at our Trust due to very high levels of acutely unwell patients requiring admission. Other Trusts in the system are experiencing similar challenges.

Colleagues are working tirelessly to provide the best care possible under these challenging circumstances, but it is clear that we are stretched beyond our current capacity. We are doing everything we can to manage the situation, including calling in additional staff and offering targeted support to those departments under pressure.

However, there are some actions that all colleagues can take that will significantly improve our response.

With immediate effect, please cancel all non-essential business and meetings that do not have a direct impact on the care we provide. Clinical colleagues should be focussed on frontline patient care.

There are a number of actions listed below that are focussed on helping us to manage this difficult situation.

The incident is being managed through the strategic and tactical command and control structures within the organisation and we will keep you informed of developments. We will continue to review the situation frequently but expect critical incident status to be in place for the next 24 hours. If you have any questions or concerns please raise these directly with your managers or tactical leads.

Our additional actions include:

Multi-Agency Discharge Events (MADE) tomorrow and Friday
Exec presence on Board rounds
An additional two patients on wards who have other patients either confirmed to be discharged or have strong potential for discharge
Coordination of medical rotas, supported by temporary stand down of outpatient and elective activity
Expansion of critical care capacity where staffing allows
Tactical cells at Sandwell, City and for PCCT to coordinate actions
Focus on patients with complex discharge needs with partners in Sandwell and Birmingham