A critical incident has been declared by University Hospitals of North Midlands (UHNM), the trust behind Royal Stoke University Hospital.

UHNM said it has been experiencing "extremely high demand for its services" at both Royal Stoke University Hospital and County Hospital in Stafford.

Katy Thorpe, UHNM Chief Operating Officer, said: "We have seen even greater demands on our services in the last 24 hours and we are currently 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.

"We will always do our best for patients and keep patients safe and locally 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.

The hospital has been under increasing pressure, with more people attending the Emergency Department (UHNM).

"As anticipated, the pressure is greatest in our emergency departments, who are 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 challenging period and the public for their understanding and co-operation."

------------

READ MORE: Three people rescued from flat fire in Stoke-on-Trent

Free from clickbait, pop-up ads and unwanted surveys, Stoke Nub News is a quality online newspaper for our city.

Subscribe to our FREE weekly newsletter email HERE - just click the 'SIGN UP' button.

Please consider following Stoke Nub News on Facebook or Twitter.