Critical incident stood down  | Latest news

At 1.30pm today (21 October 2026) the decision was taken to stand-down our critical incident. 

Why are we standing our critical incident down?  

We have met the stand-down criteria that we set out at the beginning of the critical incident.  

• The number of patients waiting to be assessed in A&E has dropped significantly.
• We have restored our A&E Resuscitation and Major Trama services.
• We have restored our Cardio admission pathway. 

Although pressures have eased, our hospitals remain busy. While numbers are lower, patients are still experiencing long waits in ED.   

Our focus will remain on maintaining patient safety and improving the experience of our patients and staff.  

Nottingham University Hospitals’ Chief Nurse, Tracy Pilcher said: “We would like to thank our staff for working incredibly hard to care for our patients. It’s been a real team effort to help alleviate those pressures as much as they can. We also want to thank our partners for their support.” 

How you can continue to help : 

• If your relative is due to be discharged from hospital and needs to be collected, please do so as early as possible. This will help our teams and free up a hospital bed for someone waiting to be admitted.   
• Only call 999 or attend ED for serious accidents and for life threatening emergencies.  
• Where the situation is not life-threatening, alternative support will be available through NHS111 online or by calling 111.  
• Urgent Treatment Centres (UTC) treat injuries including sprains, strains, suspected fractures, bites, cuts, scalds and other non-emergency conditions. Waiting times are usually much shorter than ED.  
• Pharmacies can help with allergies, constipation, headaches and many other ailments, over 200 pharmacies in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire can provide NHS medicines for seven common conditions through the Pharmacy First service. Depending on your age, this includes Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) in women, earache, shingles, sinusitis, impetigo and sore throats. See the website for details.   
• Please do not visit your loved ones in hospital if you have any flu or other respiratory illness symptoms - please wait until you are better to visit them.