NEW guidelines around when hospital trusts in Worcestershire and the West Midlands are able to declare a ‘major incident’ will make it almost impossible for them to do so, it has been claimed.

Hospitals around the country have been suffering under extreme pressure in recent weeks and earlier this month many were forced to declare major incidents – meaning the health of the entire area was considered to be at serious risk and alerting community hospitals to make extra beds available.

Although NHS England’s West Midlands team recently issued a set of new guidance to hospitals in the area around when they are able to declare a major incident, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham has claimed the revised rules are too strict and will make it impossible for trusts to do so.

Trusts in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire were among those declaring such incidents earlier this month, but Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust – the organisation running Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital –avoided doing so.

National director of commissioning operations for NHS England Dr Barbara Hakin said the decision over whether or not to declare a major incident remained with individual trusts.

“Before doing so best practice dictates that they take account of the wider impacts on other parts of the NHS so that patient safety in the round is protected,” she said.

“That's why NHS England's local area team in the West Midlands decided to issue these guidelines.

“This was not a decision of the Department of Health."