Hospital declares "critical incident" after influx of more Covid patients in Northamptonshire

An internal critical incident was declared at Kettering General Hospital earlier this week amid rapidly increasing patient numbers.

A memo sent to staff, seen by the this newspaper, said that patient numbers in the Rothwell Road hospital were now much higher than at the Spring peak of the virus last year.

It asked them to think about discharging patients where appropriate.

The alert came after Covid positive patient levels in the hospital rose to nearly a third of all the 600 in-patients in KGH.

The memo said: "We are continuing to experience extremely high demand as well as the expected winter pressures. We are also coping with a rising number of patients with Covid-19.

"Most of our beds are occupied and this includes more than 174 Covid positive patients.

"Many are seriously ill when they reach the hospital and it is expected that the number of people needing urgent care will continue to rise for some time.

"The impact this is having on our capacity is affecting out ability to care for patients in the most effective way."

Staff were instructed to focus on 'admission avoidance' - trying not to admit patients unless absolutely necessary - and on discharging patients where it is safe to do so."

The hospital is currently operating at its OPEL Level 4 - sometimes referred to as black alert - which is the highest escalation level possible and means that care may be compromised because of the pressure on the healthcare system.

It is the internal incident at the site in five weeks. On December 10 the hospital told staff to try to discharge patients where appropriate due to pressure on beds.

On December 30 the hospital asked staff to cancel meetings after declaring an internal incident.

It came as one staff member told the Chronicle & Echo's sister paper, the Northants Telegraph, that life inside the hospital's ICU department was a 'living nightmare'.

Figures earlier this week revealed more than 400 covid-positive patients were being treated in the county's two acute hospitals at Kettering and Northampton.