Winter situation report (18 – 24 December)
A&E closures and diverts: There were no A&E closures this week. There were a total of 13 A&E diverts this week, one more than the week prior but four fewer than this week last year.
Ambulance arrivals: A total of 93,454 patients arrived by ambulance. An increase of 8.8% since last week and up by 33% compared to the same week last year.
Ambulance handovers: 22.9% of ambulance handovers were delayed by 30 minutes or more, down from 33.1% last week. 7.2% were delayed by 60 minutes or more. This is down from 14.2% last week. A total of 14,262 hours were lost to ambulance handover delays.
Critical care: Adult critical care bed occupancy is at 77.6% this week; down from the week before (81.6%) and also down from the same week last year (81.7%).
Diarrhoea and vomiting (D&V): The number of beds closed due to D&V and norovirus has decreased this week, with an average of 580 closed per day. This is down from 696 last week but up from the same week last year (337).
Discharges: There was an average of 23,049 patients each day who no longer met the criteria to reside, a similar number to last week (39 fewer). Of these, almost half (49.6%,11,439) remained in hospital, a smaller proportion than the week prior (55.1%).
Flu: This week the average number of general and acute beds occupied by flu patients each day increased by 45% to 894. An average of 48 critical care beds were occupied by flu patients each day this week (62%, or 18 more than the week before).
General and acute (G&A) beds: There were an average of 100,740 G&A beds open each day across all acute trusts. On average each day, 114 G&A beds were unavailable and void to non-Covid admissions. Average bed occupancy fell this week to 91.4%.
Long stay: The number of patients staying in hospital longer than seven, 14 and 21 days has decreased since last week, down by 3.8%, 4.4%, and 5.2% respectively.
Neonatal intensive care beds: For all trusts, bed occupancy has decreased from last week and is at 68.3%; this is down from 71.1% last week. The average number of care beds open is at 1,757, 2% higher than last week.
Paediatric intensive care beds: For all trusts, bed occupancy has decreased this week to 81.7%, down from 83.6% last week. The average number of care beds open has remained the same at 362. The average number of care beds available has risen to 66 (six more than last week).
Staff absences: There were an average of 49,552 total absences each day this week, of which 5% were Covid-19 related (2,597). The total number of staff absences has decreased from the week before, but the proportion of Covid-19 related absences has remained the same.