12 February 2024

Thanks to the hard work of all involved, we are today (Friday 2 February 2024) standing down the critical incident at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust (PHU).

We made the decision to declare a critical incident because together with health and social care partners we needed to take immediate action to reduce the risk to emergency service provision, due to the high levels of occupancy and demand across our services and the wider health and care system.

To support the safe delivery of care going forward, we have agreed a commitment from all of us across the Portsmouth and South East Hampshire health and care system to explore new ways of working to provide the best care for our patients and support our staff.

Whilst this is a positive step, our hospital is still incredibly busy and we are seeing a lot of patients coming to the Emergency Department.

On Monday 29 January, we saw over 100 patients than we would usually expect, putting services under further pressure. Our teams are working incredibly hard to minimise disruption, but we know that unfortunately some patients have had to wait longer than we like or had procedures/appointments postponed, so apologise to anyone affected by this.

To help our teams, we are also asking people to:

  • Only attend the Emergency Department if they have a life-threatening injury or illness – people who do not need to be cared for at the Emergency Department will be redirected to a more appropriate service.
  • Help get their loved one home if the decision has been made that they are ready to leave hospital. This includes arranging transport and making sure they have clothing to travel home in. More information on this can be found on our ‘Ready to Go’ website page.
  • Use NHS 111 onlineor visit their local pharmacy if they need medical advice over the weekend or are unsure where to go.

Thank you to our partners and community for your continued support during this time and to our staff for their ongoing dedication to our patients.