The Medical Director of Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (MWL) is urging people across the community to support local hospitals as much as they can during a period of heavy demand.
In a week where new figures showed the NHS experienced the busiest year on record for A&E and ambulance services in 2024, Dr Peter Williams says MWL Trust staff are currently facing huge challenges and is asking residents for their support by avoiding attending Southport Hospital’s A and E department unless it is absolutely necessary.
He said: “People will have seen the pressure the NHS has been under both locally and nationally over the past week.
“It is no different here and it has been extremely busy at all our sites with huge demand on our emergency services with an increasing number of people with flu and respiratory illnesses coming to hospital.
“With that in mind we are asking for people’s help.
“We want to make sure everyone gets the best care possible at all times and it is still really important for people with urgent and emergency health conditions to still come to A and E if they need to. That will always be our advice.
“But we would ask anyone with non-urgent conditions to look at alternative services such as NHS 111 online, your local GP, pharmacy or walk-in centres in the first instance to see if you can get help.
“I want to assure people that our staff are working incredibly hard as always to deliver the best care possible for each patient but if your condition isn’t urgent there may be a longer than anticipated wait for treatment while we treat our sickest patients.’’
He added: “It’s really important that everyone gets the care that they need, and I would like to thank everyone for their co-operation, which is really appreciated.’’
The new NHS figures showed there was an average of 5,407 patients a day in hospital with flu last week across the UK, including 256 in critical care – 3.5 times higher than the same week last year (1,548 w/e 7 January 2024).
A&Es were also hit by unprecedented demand this year with 2.35 million attendances in December, bringing the total number of attendances in 2024 to 27.42 million – the busiest year for A&Es ever recorded and 7.1% higher than in 2023 (25.61 million).
Ambulance teams handled 806,405 incidents in December taking the total number for 2024 to 8.94 million – up from 8.35 million in 2023.
Covid, RSV and norovirus cases remained high with more than 1,100 patients in hospital with Covid every day last week, as well as 626 patients with norovirus – up almost 50% on the same week last year (424). There was also an average of 72 children in hospital with RSV every day, up 47% from last year (49).
NHS teams have also delivered a total of 29 million flu, Covid and RSV vaccines since the autumn campaign kicked off. Those eligible for a jab can still get protected by visiting a COVID-19 walk-in vaccination site or finding a pharmacy offering the flu vaccine.
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