East Midlands Ambulance Service declares critical incident in response to increasing pressure

East Midlands Ambulance Service has this evening declared a critical incident.

EMAS has put out more ambulance resource than ever before. However, the combination of significant patient demand, pressure within local hospitals, and flooding across the East Midlands, have led to this level of escalation.

The critical incident was declared at 6pm today (Monday, January 6).

In a statement, Emas said: “Declaring a critical incident includes a formal ask of partner services to take immediate action to help mitigate the risk for people in our communities, including:

“Rapid release of ambulances from hospital departments. We appreciate this will be challenging for hospital colleagues however, we need to ensure we have emergency ambulances available to respond to people waiting in the community where life is at threat.

“From the morning, local NHS Clinical Hubs to take Category 3 calls (see additional notes) from EMAS and provide support and/or a local alternative NHS pathway for these patient. This allows EMAS to focus on responding to Category 1 (life-threatening) and Category 2 (serious) calls.

“All Category 3 calls from NHS 111 receive a clinical validation from DHU Healthcare (the provider of 111 services) before it is sent for an ambulance.

“Like many across the NHS, EMAS colleagues have been working tirelessly to respond to patient need. All internal actions and options to mitigate risk have been exhausted; therefore, a critical incident has been called to ensure mutual aid to support delivery of emergency and urgent patient care.”

It asked members of the public with illnesses or injuries that are not immediately life-threatening to seek care via a pharmacy, urgent treatment centre orGP.

“Given the additional weather-related pressures being responded to by emergency services across the East Midlands, please act responsibly and do not take unnecessary risks,” the statement said.