Council teams support Shropshire hospitals after critical incident called
Teams from Shropshire Council have been supporting the county’s health care system after a critical incident was called on Tuesday.
Affecting Shropshire's Royal Shrewsbury and Princess Royal Hospitals, the incident was declared as a result of extreme pressures on the NHS coinciding with Wednesday's ambulance workers' strike.
On the day of the strikes, Shropshire Council sent teams to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital to provide support to help reduce pressures in accident and emergency and ensure that hospital discharges could continue.
The council’s community outreach and social prescribing teams also supported teams at A&E and on the wards.
They helped people to access information and support following hospital discharge, as well as signposting people to a range of community services that can help people as they recover, such as falls support, winter wellness support and cost of living support.
The council’s transport fleet was on standby to help ensure any discharges from hospital were not affected; for example, taking a patient from a community hospital in Bridgnorth to a home in Shrewsbury.
And a number of council staff came in from leave to support the efforts to help ease pressures on the health care system, with many staff redeployed to areas that directly support hospital discharges.
Working very closely with care providers and Shropshire Partners in Care, Shropshire Council is also striving to make sure that there are enough care packages available in the county to meet demand.
Cecilia Motley, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for adult social care, public health and communities, said: “There’s been a huge amount of work going on across many teams in the council to help reduce the pressures we are seeing now across the health care system in Shropshire.
“Much of this often goes unseen, and I want to thank all council teams who are supporting this effort and our partners in the care sector who play a vital part.
“Everyone is working flat out to do what we can to keep the system, that is under extreme pressure, running as smoothly as possible in what are very difficult circumstances.”
