NHS in crisis: York and Scarborough hospitals say January 3 among busiest days in A&E ever as staff battle to find beds for patients

York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said staff would be potentially re-deployed away from outpatient services this week to provide more acute care.

The Trust has stopped short of declaring a critical incident, a spokesperson said last night, but admitted that the hospitals were “simply not discharging patients in high enough numbers.”

A spokesperson said: “Like hospitals across the country our emergency departments are under severe strain and in the last couple of days we have experienced the worst pressures on emergency services in our history.

"We have been under sustained pressure for several weeks which has escalated over the double bank holiday period, resulting in today (January 3) being one of the busiest our two acute hospitals have ever seen.

"We have high numbers of patients in our emergency departments awaiting admission, and we are simply not discharging patients in high enough numbers to create the capacity we need.”

Potentially cancellations to planned care are being kept under close review, the Trust said.

"We are taking a series of actions and reviewing planned activity this week to identify where we can redirect staff and/or create additional acute capacity,” the spokesperson continued.

"We are fully aware that taking such action may be disruptive to patients attending hospital for planned care or outpatient appointments and we haven’t made this decision lightly.

"However, the situation in terms of the pressure on our two emergency departments requires extraordinary action.”

Some 123 patients in beds across the Trust are ready for discharge, the spokesperson added, but are unable to leave the hospitals because they don’t have a care place ready for them.

The public have been urged not to attend A&E except for in life-threatening situations or serious injury.