“IT’S far worse than when we were at the height of the pandemic.”

These were the words of a Salisbury District Hospital (SDH) nurse after a critical incident was declared onsite last week.

Triggered by delays to the ambulance service and the discharging of patients, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust announced the hospital is currently “under intense pressure” with “many patients” affected.

The critical incident response has now ceased, but the hospital says it remained busy over the bank holiday weekend and into this week.

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues, despite a sense of normality returning across the city, an SDH employee, who has asked to remain anonymous, says this is not the case at the hospital.

They claim wards are “acutely understaffed” leaving nurses “exhausted”.

The SDH worker told the Journal that staff levels in certain departments are worse now than during the height of the pandemic.

They said more staff were deployed during the harder months of Covid-19 to support teams and prevent being “dangerously understaffed”.

Referring to the last few weeks however, they said: “We’ve been struggling big time - it’s crazy here.”

Concerned about mental health and work load pressure, they said: “I love nursing and SDH has alway been an excellent place to work and I have, up until now, always valued it as a place I can trust if my loved ones ever had to be treated there.

"But now? I dread either myself or my family ever needing to go to hospital as a patient.”

They added: “We are good nurses but we cannot do the impossible anymore. We are worried something avoidable will happen to a patient on our watch and we will be held to account and face an investigation and lose our registration.”

In a bid to alleviate pressure and patient waiting times, the trust is continuing to ask the community to only visit the hospital if essential.

In an online plea Simon Hunter, emergency department consultant at the hospital, said: “We see a large number of patients coming through the A&E department and it is impacting on the care that’s delivered to patients.

“We’re seeing very high numbers of patients coming in and we’re not entirely sure why that is but our message is that we really want to focus our attention and resources on those who really need our help.”

He stressed that the A&E department is for “acute emergencies”, including heart attacks, stroke or severe infection.

The trust is urging that NHS 111, pharmacies and the city’s walk-in centre are considered before coming to the hospital.

Confirmed by the trust Tuesday afternoon, May 3, 20 Covid-19-positive patients were being cared for on site.

Last week more than 50 members of staff were absent as a result of the virus.

Following last week’s critical incident, chief executive Stacey Hunter said: “We would like to ask for the community to support us as we work to alleviate the pressure and improve the flow of patients through the hospital.

“If people have a family member waiting to be discharged please try to respond quickly to calls about their ongoing care at home or in another setting.

"Please don’t attend the hospital site unless critical, and if attending A&E for emergency care please be patient as staff will prioritise those most in need of urgent or critical care. The hospital is open. Please do attend all appointments as normal unless directly contacted by the hospital.”

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