'Organised chaos': staff at Ipswich hospital A&E on an 'intense' week

Doctors and nurses worked unrelenting shifts to deal with deluge of patients over festive period, but the hospital has coped without declaring a black alert

It is 11am in A&E at Ipswich hospital, Suffolk, and the department is unusually quiet after a busy week. A combination of bad weather and more patients suffering breathing problems led to a deluge of arrivals over Christmas and new year. Today, staff look hollow-eyed with exhaustion as they move between checking on patients and doing paperwork.

Doctors and nurses talk about the past few days being among the most “intense” in their working life and say they are exhausted. Many have worked long, unrelenting shifts. The hospital was forced to open escalation wards and cancelled all elective surgery in preparation. An average of 259 patients attended A&E each day from 19 December to 2 January, up from 232 last year – a rise of 11%. The hospital is now running at 90% capacity.

We will be monitoring the situation in hospitals over the next few months and want to hear your experiences of the NHS this winter. We are keen to hear from healthcare professionals as well as patients about the situation. Have operations been cancelled? Has pressure led to certain wards being closed? How are staff coping? Help us document what is going on across the UK.

Continue reading... January 04, 2018 at 10:53PM