“Can that chap sit, do we think?” asks Dr Raj Paw, a senior consultant in the emergency department at Warwick Hospital.He is speaking about a patient in his 90s who was brought in after collapsing at home, where he was found cold and confused.Now he is stable. Could that open up a bed?”If we can get him to sit then he could go into one of the chairs, and that would free up his bed,” Dr Paw says.This is the sort of conversation doctors and nurses are having in hospitals up and down the country as a severe flu season puts the NHS under pressure.More than a dozen hospitals have declared critical incidents – including some of those considered among the best in the country. Earlier this week, the BBC visited Warwick Hospital. It is run by the South Warwickshire trust, which is one of the top rated in the country and has prided itself on the smooth running of its four hospitals.But the caseload has been overwhelming this week. Warwick Hospital has 375 beds and at one point the predicted demand was almost 100 more than that. For the first time ever, it’s had to declare a critical incident – the highest alert level in the NHS.The BBC was there when hospital administrators made the call. Declaring a critical incident is a warning to the local health system that things are getting bad. Often, it frees up hospitals to redeploy doctors and create new temporary ward space.Over a two-day period, the BBC saw doctors and nurses doing just that: finding stop-gap solutions to treat patients in whatever safe settings cou …
