Medway Maritime Hospital declares critical incident

A Kent hospital has declared a critical incident due to "extreme" patient numbers.

The Medway Maritime Hospital said it was seeing "a significant rise in demand" for hospital services.

The hospital said some non-urgent operations may need to be rescheduled.

A spokesman said: "Patient safety must take priority and we need to take action to make sure that those who are more clinically urgent get the help they need as quickly as possible."

The hospital said the number of people attending the emergency department was rising, and there were "ongoing challenges in discharging patients who are well enough to leave the hospital".

As a result, some non-urgent operations and outpatient appointments will be rescheduled, but the hospital said cancer and other most urgent operations and appointments would continue to be prioritised.

By Mark Norman, health correspondent, BBC South East

Already experiencing record levels of attendances at its A&E, Medway Maritime Hospital has decided it needs further support, and declaring a critical incident ought to provide that support from the NHS regionally.

The problem is that support is unlikely to come from neighbouring hospital trusts as they are themselves facing similar challenges.

This might not be a direct result of the ambulance strike, but it will have played a significant part as patients who didn't use 999 services begin to need help and start to arrive at the hospital's front door.

With a series of bank holidays and another ambulance strike next week this is not going to get any easier.

The hospital said that patients whose appointments need to be rescheduled would be contacted directly, and told patients who had not been contacted to continue to turn up for their appointment.

The hospital has asked the public to only attend the emergency department for serious accidents and life-threatening emergencies.

Anyone feeling unwell is being asked to call 111, or visit NHS 111 online for advice.

On Monday, the South East Coast Ambulance Service (Secamb) declared a critical incident.

Secamb said it followed more than a week of "sustained pressure" on its 999 and 111 services across Kent, East and West Sussex and Surrey.

The ambulance trust said the heavy workload had "significantly impacted" its ability to respond to patients.

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