Winter situation report (12 – 18 February) 

A&E closures and diverts: There were no A&E closures this week. There were 25 A&E diverts, three more than the week prior but 21 more than the same time last year. 
 
Ambulance arrivals: A total of 89,377 patients arrived by ambulance in the latest week. This is down by 2% since the week before but up 12.1% compared to the same week last year. 
 
Ambulance handovers: 29.9% of ambulance handovers were delayed by 30 minutes or more, down from 32.6% last week. 12% were delayed by 60 minutes or more, down from 13.3% last week. A total of 23,494 hours were lost to ambulance handover delays, this is 14.6% lower than last week but 36.7% higher than the same week last year. 

Critical care: Adult critical care bed occupancy is at 80.2% this week: this is down from 81.4% a week before but is above levels seen in the same week last year (77.7%). 
 
Diarrhoea and vomiting (D&V): There were an average of 607 beds closed due to D&V and norovirus this week, down from 689 last week. This is down by 12% compared to last week and lower than this time last year (821). 

Discharges: On average there were 24,436 patients each day who no longer met the criteria to reside, a slight decrease than the week before (-0.5%). Compared to last week, a smaller proportion of patients remained in hospital (55.8%, or 13,624). 

Flu: This week the average number of general and acute beds occupied by flu patients each day decreased by 8.5% to 2,096. This is 3.5 times larger than the same time last year (1,493 more). An average of 112 critical care beds were occupied by flu patients each day this week (14% more than the week before) and 3.2 times greater than same time last year (76 more).

General and acute (G&A) beds: There were an average of 103,597 G&A beds open each day across all acute trusts. On average each day, 71 G&A beds were unavailable and void to non-Covid admissions. Average bed occupancy remains high at 94%. This is up marginally from 93.8% last week but is at a similar level to the same time last year (94.1%).

Long stay: The number of patients staying in hospital longer than 21 days increased slightly this week (+0.6%). However, those staying longer than seven and 14 days decreased by 0.6% and 0.2% respectively.

Neonatal intensive care beds: For all trusts, bed occupancy is now at 69.7%, staying at a similar level to last week (69.6%). This is up from 66.7% the same week a year before. The average number of care beds open is at 1,720, 17 more beds open compared to the same time last year. 

Paediatric intensive care beds: For all trusts, bed occupancy has decreased this week to 77.5%, down from 77.9% last week. The average number of paediatric intensive care beds open this week has fallen by one to 372. 

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV): An average of 11 paediatric beds were closed this week due to RSV symptoms, down from 18 last week and down from 16 last year. 

Staff absences: There were an average of 46,834 total absences each day this week, of which 3% were Covid-19 related (1,236). The total number of staff absences decreased from the week before (48,482) but the proportion of Covid-19 related absences was the same.