NHS Cheshire and Merseyside update on system pressures

With NHS services reporting ongoing pressure, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside continues to urge members of the public to ensure their vaccinations are up-to-date and to continue to follow simple self-care advice.

If you need to access a healthcare service, but it’s not an emergency, NHS 111 Online can tell you:

• Where to get help for your symptoms
• How to find general health information and advice
• Where to get an emergency supply of your prescribed medicine
• How to get a repeat prescription

Prof Rowan Pritchard Jones, Medical Director for NHS Cheshire and Merseyside, said: "Across Cheshire and Merseyside, NHS services continue to experience high demand, with all but one local NHS Trust reporting a high level of escalation and alert throughout the last week.

"Current pressures are being exacerbated by a number of factors including the impact of recent severe weather, the complexity of issues that patients are presenting with, staff sickness and the number of beds currently closed due to infection prevention control measures following norovirus and COVID-19 admissions.

"If you need to access a healthcare service, but it’s not an emergency, please use NHS 111 Online to ensure you are signposted to the correct service first time."

More than half of all hospital beds across Cheshire and Merseyside (58%) are currently occupied by patients who have been in hospital for at least a week, with more than one in five (22%) occupied by patients classed as being medically fit for discharge.

On Monday (March 13th) there were 157 beds closed across Cheshire and Merseyside due to infection prevention control measures.

Our priority, as always, is to ensure safe and high-quality care for people in Cheshire and Merseyside.

Hospitals and community services, including staff across nursing, pharmacy and general practice are doing all they can to meet people’s needs. As always, the NHS will contact you if an appointment needs to be rescheduled.

As a system, a number of measures are in place to help relieve the current pressures, including:

• Work with NHS Trusts to ensure all possible capacity across the healthcare system is utilised and to support the release of ambulance crews.
• National funding is being utilised across Cheshire and Merseyside to support hospital discharge processes and ensure more care packages are available in the community.
• Significant investment continues to be made in virtual wards to support more people to be treated out of hospital.

Irrespective of how busy local NHS services are, and any NHS industrial action, it is essential that people who need urgent medical care continue to come forward – especially in emergency and life-threatening cases, when someone is seriously ill or injured or their life is at risk.

Typical emergencies include cardiac arrest, loss of consciousness, fits that aren’t stopping, breathing difficulties, severe bleeding, severe allergic reactions and serious head injuries. If you have already called 999 to request an ambulance, please only call back if your condition has worsened or to cancel the ambulance. Repeatedly calling 999 can block phone lines for other emergencies.

More information about when to call 999 and when to go to A&E is available via the national NHS website.