WORCESTERSHIRE Royal Hospital is ‘broadly back to full operations’ after a weekend failure of its heating system led to the Accident and Emergency department being closed temporarily.
Health bosses have begun an investigation into why the heating system failed and caused a series of leaks from pipes across the site and a ‘substantial amount of water in the corridors’.
Ambulances were diverted from Saturday (March 26) evening until accident and emergency reopened at 4pm yesterday (Sunday).
While the impact on patients should be ‘quite limited’, trust chief executive Matthew Hopkins has again repeated the plea for patients to consider whether they need to attend Accident and Emergency.
Anyone with an appointment at the Royal should attend as planned unless they are informed otherwise.
Along with the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, the Royal’s emergency department remains under pressure.
Health bosses have issued a plea to help them treat the most seriously-ill patients as quickly as possible by asking residents to either call 111 for urgent health advice or the county’s five Minor Injuries Units.
MIU’s can be found in Bromsgrove, Evesham, Kidderminster, Malvern and Tenbury which offer urgent care with much shorter waits.
Visit https://111.nhs.uk/ or www.hacw.nhs.uk/miu for more.
