NHS Grampian stands down critical incident after ‘extreme pressure’

In an update, NHS Grampian said that while pressures across the health and social care system continued, hospital capacity had improved at ARI.

Alex Stephen, who has taken over as NHS Grampian executive director on call, said: “The key area of pressure over the weekend came when Dr Gray’s no longer had capacity to safely admit patients, compounded by staffing shortages, ambulance delays, lack of community capacity and increasing pressure at ARI.

“Retaining an incident management team approach for Dr Gray’s will enable us to continue to focus on breaking the cycle of high bed occupancy at the hospital, including case-by-base reviews of all patients who are delayed in hospital and who are awaiting care in the community.”