Northampton hospital chief praises staff as A&E continues to treat 400 patients each day

It comes as relentless winter pressures have seen up to 400 patients - experiencing mostly respiratory problems, chest pains, and flu - needing treatment at Northampton's A&E department.

Despite long waits at A&E the CEO of Northampton General Hospital (NGH), Sonia Swart, has thanked her staff for working hard to make sure they have been able to deal with demand.

She said: “We are thankful to our staff and volunteers for their unwavering dedication and commitment to providing care for our patients. The last few weeks have been very challenging, but despite this, the team has strived to always do the best for patients.

"I am so proud of the team effort we have in the hospital and how well clinical and non-clinical teams come together during busy times to support each other.

“We are seeing a lot of unwell people who do need our care and would like to thank the public for their support and understanding. We would always encourage people feeling unwell to seek medical help as soon as possible and to use our community NHS services when an illness or injury is not life-threatening."

Patients in A&E will be seen based on clinical needs, which means if their condition is not life-threatening they will have to wait longer to be seen.

If you have a friend or relative in hospital medics have asked that the patients are collected as soon as they are ready to be discharged to free up bed space for someone who desperately needs it.

The hospital has said that the cold weather and mixing with more people over Christmas seemed to make health problems such as asthma, sore throats, chest infections and norovirus worse. This has a knock-on effect with patients suffering from respiratory illnesses needing hospital care.

Heart attacks are also more common in winter because cold weather increases blood pressure and puts more strain on the heart.

The elderly population or people with disabilities are also more vulnerable to the colder weather. They may not have people to check in on them regularly so when they become ill it quickly gets worse.

On top of this, doctors have also had to deal with life-threatening illnesses or injuries, heavy bleeding, choking, chest pains, broken bones.

If less urgent care is needed the hospital urges patients to see their pharmacist, GP, Corby urgent care centre or NHS 111 can provide advice and help.