Ambulance service 'on stand-by for major incident' in Peterborough as demand increases

The East of England Ambulance Service have moved to ‘major incident standby’ as demand increased in the region.

The service, which covers the Peterborough area, has said the move will enable them to ‘better direct resources to focus on patient care.’

The service said the move had been made due to increased pressure across the Eastern region from lengthy delays at hospital handover and 999 demand – although when asked for further details on the level of demand and waiting times that had meant the alert level had to be increased – and specifically what the level of demand in Peterborough and the surrounding area is – and what the service is doing short and long term to deal with the issues, the service said the ‘information was not available at short notice.’

A spokesperson for the trust said: “The NHS is currently facing incredibly high demand and we are working very closely with our partners to speed up handover delays at hospitals to improve care for our patients.

"We experienced increased pressure across the Eastern region over the weekend caused by lengthy handover delays at hospitals and 999 demand. We moved to major incident standby on Saturday night and have remained at that level of escalation to enable us to better direct our resources to focus on patient care."

To help the handover process, the service has put in place new hospital ambulance liaison officers at hospitals to speed up handovers and new systems to pre-alert hospitals about the sickest patients, and direct non-urgent patients to other services where appropriate.

The service is now operating at ‘REAP level 4’ which is the highest escalation alert level for ambulance trusts.

By being on Major Alert Standby, the service can take a number of actions, including making overtime incentives and other measures available to ensure they have all available staff on-shift, prioritising the sickest patients and those unable to make their own way to hospital and cancelling some staff meetings, training and assessment.