Cumbrian Hospitals stood down from "Major Incident" status

The Cumbrian NHS Trusts said today that the bed shortage crisis at Whitehaven’s West Cumberland Hospital and the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle has passed.

An internal major incident was declared at the two hospitals last week when they reached capacity.

All non-elective surgery was cancelled and some patients had to be treated outside the county. The trust which runs the cottage hospitals in Workington, Cockermouth, Maryport and Keswick opened extra beds in Maryport to help with the crisis.

A hospitals spokesman said: “Thanks to the collective efforts of all partners working together, the trust has now been able to successfully reduce the need to maintain escalation beds which was putting a major strain on staff and the ability to safely run services.

“Our focus now is on making sure that we learn from the events of the past week and also that partners continue to work effectively together so that all patients get the right care, at the right time and in the right place.”

Dr Jeremy Rushmer, medical director at North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Acute hospitals, said:

“Patient care and safety has been our prime concern throughout this incident and we very grateful for everyone’s efforts over the past few days in resolving the immediate pressures facing hospital services.

“The pressures seen in recent weeks are a reflection of the scale and nature of much wider challenges across the entire health and social care system in north Cumbria and we continue to work collectively to ensure that any patients waiting unnecessarily in an acute hospital bed, are moved to the right care setting sooner rather than later.

“We would like to thank all staff for their effort and commitment during these particularly challenging times and also thank patients and the public for their co-operation.”