The Great Western Hospital has joined dozens across the country in declaring a critical incident as unprecedented demand for urgent and emergency care continues to put pressure on the NHS. 

The Trust's chief medical officer, Jon Westbrook, has said that the numbers of cases and sicknesses that the hospital is dealing with are numbers that he had never seen before in his career.

A shortage of available beds caused by this demand, as well as patients that are well enough to go home but can't, have led to ambulances queuing outside and some patients waiting up to 99 hours in the Emergency Department for a bed on a ward.

As a result, both the hospital itself and the area's Integrated Care Board have put out a plea to the public to only visit the hospital's emergency departments if they absolutely need to. 

Read More: Public warned to only call 999 or visit A&E 'if life is at risk'

People have also been asked to help by picking up patients and loved ones who can be discharged from the hospital as quickly as possible. 

Staff members at the Swindon hospital were sent a now-leaked memo from Mr Westbrook on Friday announcing that a critical incident had been declared. 

In it he said: "Following yesterday’s message, the Great Western Hospital remains extremely busy today, with all areas of the hospital at full capacity and patients waiting for especially long periods in our Urgent Treatment Centre, Emergency Department and in the back of queuing ambulances.

“Other local trusts including Bath, Salisbury and Bristol, are experiencing similar challenges and the NHS is working together across the region to manage the exceptional demand.

“Staff are working exceptionally hard across the Trust to support the pressure we are experiencing across all services and strong public messaging is being pushed out across the region signposting NHS 111 online, local children’s clinics and local prescribing pharmacies.”

The critical incident means the hospital will be ‘escalating’ conversations with social care providers about patients whose care can continue outside of the hospital, and it is now making a joint concerted effort with them to discharge patients and arrange further care placements.

The addition of further nursing staff in some areas, like the Emergency Department, is also being organised. 

In the leaked memo sent to staff, reported on by The Times’ Shaun Lintern, he said: “We are seeing case numbers and [sickness] that we have not previously seen in our clinical careers.”

Lintern also claimed an anonymous clinician at the hospital said: "We’re broken and nobody is listening.”

A spokesperson from the hospital confirmed the long waits in A&E to move on to a ward but reiterated that patients were still being treated and looked after and 'a number of additional actions' have been made to help. 

They said: “Great Western Hospitals, like the wider NHS, is currently facing very high demand from patients who need a hospital bed. This does mean that some patients are having to wait a long time to be admitted to a ward.

“Whilst any patient is waiting for a bed in one of our assessment areas, they continue to receive diagnostic investigations, continuous treatment and supervision from our teams.

They added: “There are regularly over 100 patients across Great Western Hospital who are medically fit to go home but are waiting for a bed in the community, such as in nursing or care homes, and this is a key factor impacting wait times.

“In this context, our teams are working tirelessly with other organisations including our social care colleagues to get people home as soon as they are able so that we can free up more beds.

“In turn, local people can also help us by only coming to the hospital if they really need to, and using the NHS 111 service in the first instance can direct to the most appropriate healthcare setting for a patient's needs.”