UPDATE: Highland flagship Raigmore Hospital still on critical list but some pressures ease as staff rally to combat huge influx of trauma, orthopaedic and flu cases
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Staff have rallied to ensure the Highlands’ biggest hospital can still offer life-saving care amid huge patient pressures.
Raigmore Hospital in Inverness has seen an exceptionally high influx of patients over the last few days, forcing management to take the rare step of appealing to staff on New Year holiday to come back into work.
The surge in flu cases and trauma patients sparked a huge effort to ease the pressure on beds by dispersing less-critical patients to other community hospitals and care facilities.
NHS Highland today revealed they were able to lower the emergency code warning from its highest level, black, to the second highest level, red.
Code black indicates a hospital is at absolute capacity, with no available beds for new admissions from accident and emergency.
Code red, the United Kingdom's rapid response code, remains critical with a call to specialist doctors and trauma teams to attend the location.
Katherine Sutton, NHS Highland’s chief officer for acute, said: "Raigmore is currently at 'red' status, meaning we are still under a lot of pressure, but our amazing staff have helped us to step down from 'black'.
“We would like to send a big thank you to them.
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“We monitor the situation continuously and have clear plans in place should the situation change.
“We are still seeing lots of people with flu and also a high number of orthopaedic cases resulting from trips, slips and falls.
"We really appreciate the support shown to us by the public.
“You can help by checking on vulnerable neighbours and relatives – making sure they have all they need so they don't have to go out in icy conditions – and please don't visit health and care locations if you have flu symptoms."
