Full services resume as critical incident ends at Shrewsbury and Telford hospitals

Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital Trust (SaTH) cancelled some appointments and services due to "exceptionally" high demand at Princess Royal Hospital in Telford and Royal Shrewsbury Hospital on Friday.

The trust said that the impacts of Covid were still affecting capacity while it was also struggling to discharge patients to care providers.

As a result, some "non-urgent services" were temporarily stopped and patients were urged to only attend A&E if absolutely necessary.

However all services were resumed on Saturday after a review of capacity at the hospitals alongside health partners.

A spokesman for the trust thanked people for their patience.

Pressure on the hospital trust has been extremely high since the pandemic began, with the high number of patients in hospital causing long waits for ambulances handing over patients which in turn has delayed response times to 999 calls.

Announcing the critical incident on Friday, a statement from SaTH said: "Our hospitals have been experiencing a prolonged and intense period of pressure due to the exceptionally high levels of demand for the services that we provide, as well as the ongoing impacts from Covid-19.

"We are also continuing to experience issues in discharging medically fit patients due to capacity issues within the local care sector.

"Despite us taking every available option to free up capacity and create additional space, it has become clear today that we need to prioritise our services and so we have declared a critical incident.

"This means that we are pausing a limited number of non-urgent services to allow us to meet the most urgent needs of those we care for.

"Urgent services, including cancer, and time-critical procedures will continue, and we will contact patients directly who may be affected by delays to non-urgent treatment or postponed appointments."

The trust said that any postponed appointments or procedures would be rescheduled as soon as possible.