Wiltshire NHS hospital trust declares 'critical incident'

Wiltshire's Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has declared an "internal critical incident".

Chief Executive Kevin McNamara said the trust - which runs Great Western Hospital in Swindon - took the decision after "sustained high levels of demand" and "availability of beds".

Covid inpatient numbers have risen 81% since Christmas Eve, he said.

The BBC understands 180 staff cannot work because of Covid while around 200 are off with other illnesses.

Posting on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, Mr McNamara said he was "very sorry" for the delays patients had faced in accessing care.

He explained that the trust "always knew" January would be a tough month and its "modelling shows that it is likely to get tougher in the next few weeks".

"Our teams are working hard to provide care to those that need it and we are of course working closely with partners seeking support."

The trust is the latest in the NHS to declare an incident over recent days.

The chief executive of the NHS Confederation, Matthew Taylor, said that "in many parts of the health service, we are currently in a state of crisis".

He wrote in a blog, published on Monday: "Some hospitals are making urgent calls to exhausted staff to give up rest days and leave to enable them to sustain core services."

On Monday Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would "make sure that we look after our NHS any way that we can".

Mr Johnson warned that the health service faces "considerable" pressure in the coming weeks and said it would be "folly" to think the pandemic was almost over.

Despite his warning, he has not introduced any more social distancing measures - despite calls from some medical professionals to do so.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid also insisted that additional curbs would be an "absolute last resort".

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