Critical Incident Declared (14 January 2026)

UHNM has been experiencing extremely high demand for all its services. As a result the Trust has today declared a critical incident in order to ensure patient safety is not compromised.

Mike Goodwin, UHNM Deputy Chief Operating Officer, said: “We are currently experiencing increased demand on our services and are under extreme pressure.

“We have therefore taken the decision to declare a critical incident. This helps us to take additional measures to maintain safe services for our patients.

“Our teams work tirelessly to keep patients safe. We are working with our NHS and Local Authority partners to put in place measures to ensure that people who need hospital and emergency care can get treatment quickly and to identify and utilise any additional capacity to allow us to discharge patients that do not require hospital care.

“As anticipated, the pressure is greatest in our emergency departments, particularly at Royal Stoke University Hospital, which is facing on-going challenges as patients are unable to be admitted to beds promptly.

“During this time the emergency departments will continue to see the sickest patients first, which means for some patients there may be much longer delays for their treatment.

“We continue to ask the public to help us by only using A&E in a serious or life threatening emergency and for their help when we’re discharging their friends or loved ones to ensure they’re picked up from hospital as soon as possible and have everything they need at home.

“I would like to thank our staff for their on-going efforts during this extremely busy period and the public for their understanding and co-operation.”