MP asks government to help hospital on 'red alert'

An MP is asking the government for urgent help after a hospital has warned accident and emergency patients to expect waits of up to 15 hours.

The Royal Blackburn Hospital issued a red alert and said it had a "high number of really poorly patients" with 138 patients in its emergency unit on Monday evening.

Blackburn MP Adnan Hussain said he would work closely with the hospital, which has one of the country's busiest A&E departments, as well as raising the issue with the Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Care Wes Streeting.

The government said it aimed to "transform the NHS into a neighbourhood health service" to reduce the need for people to go to A&E.

Hussain, an independent MP, said the number of patients presenting at the hospital appeared to be higher than during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The MP added there was an "urgent need for this situation to be resolved for both patients and staff".

He said: "This situation is not new, in fact, it is an ongoing situation in which the hospital is having to deal with an extremely challenging workload.

"I have been assured the hospital is not understaffed, and all nurse vacancies have been filled with hundreds of new student nurses on hand."

He added: "I know the hard-working staff are doing everything they can to assist patients under such difficult circumstances – with the run up to winter not helping."

The MP re-iterated the East Lancashire Hospital Trust's (ELHT) call for people to make sure they are going to the most appropriate place for their medical needs.

Sharon Gilligan, deputy chief executive at ELHT which runs Royal Blackburn Hospital, apologised on Monday to patients and their families for the long waiting times.

She said: "The team could not be doing any more to support patients and their families in an extremely pressured and challenged environment, and I want to thank them for their ongoing hard work and resilience."

The trust added it had been working with the ambulance service "to identify people who could be treated at home by community colleagues rather than in hospital".

It also said it was running a hotline for people to call if they were concerned someone was deteriorating.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokeswoman said the government "inherited a broken NHS that sees annual winter crises as the norm".

"Our Plan for Change will create a health service that is there for us all year round.

"To protect A&Es this winter, we have ended the resident doctors strikes, so NHS staff will be on the frontline not the picket line for the first time in three years, and we've vaccinated nearly 27 million people against flu, Covid and RSV so far."

She added: "Through our 10 Year Health Plan we will also transform the NHS into a neighbourhood health service, so patients are able to easily see a GP or other community services, reducing the need for them to go to A&E."

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