UPDATE: Major incident continues at Cambridge’s Addenbrooke’s Hospital

Addenbrooke’s Hospital is continuing to declare a ‘major incident’ at its A&E today after an unprecedented surge in patients.

The Cambridge University Hospitals’ NHS Foundation Trust first declared the incident at 7pm on Tuesday after struggling to cope with an increase in admittances.

Trust chief executive Dr Keith McNeil said today that although progress had been made he was asking people not to attend A&E unless they have an emergency or life-threatening condition.

However patients who have an outpatient or other appointment booked, are asked to come as planned unless they have been directly contacted by hospital staff.

Dr McNeil said: “We have made progress overnight but continue our focus on discharging patients in order to close contingency areas before we can stand down from major incident.

“Our priority is to care safely for the patients already in the hospital and arrange the safe discharge of those who are well enough to go home and to ensure that we can provide care for those who require urgent treatment.

“Giving the extreme circumstances, we are contacting the relatives of patients who are medically fit to go home, with ongoing care needs such as feeding or personal care and asking them, wherever possible, to take their relative home while care packages are put in place, where appropriate.

“As part of our plans to manage high demand on our services, we have cancelled non-emergency surgery. Right across the country the situation is similar.

“Ambulance and community services are also under pressure and this has put additional pressure onto acute hospitals.

“We are therefore continuing to ask patients not to attend A&E unless they have an emergency or life-threatening condition.

“I would like to thank all staff, whether based in the hospital or in the community, who are working very hard to ensure we can continue to provide care to our patients in these challenging circumstances.”