Critical incident declared at QEQM Hospital in Margate due to exceptionally high demand

January 12, 2026 Kathy Bailes News 68

QEQM Hospital

A critical incident has been declared by East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust today (January 12)  due to sustained pressures at the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital, Margate.

Beds across East Kent hospitals are currently full and attendance at emergency departments is extremely high, meaning there is very limited capacity to admit further patients who need acute care.

Due to the high levels of winter illness in the community, from tomorrow (Tuesday 13 January) the Trust will be temporarily stopping visits on certain wards at QEQM to protect patients.

The wards and areas not affected by this are children’s, critical care units and maternity areas. If your loved one is at the end of their life or needs specific support staff will ensure you are able to visit and this will be agreed by the ward manager. Virtual visiting will be available for all patients.

The Trust says this decision has not been taken lightly but hospitals are experiencing exceptionally high demand, driven by a continued high admission rate and a large number of patients with winter illnesses and respiratory viruses.

QEQM corridor waits

Sarah Hayes, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer at East Kent Hospitals, said: “Our teams are working tirelessly under immense pressure to provide safe, compassionate care to every patient who comes through our doors.

“We are doing everything possible to increase capacity for urgent and emergency care and would like to thank our staff, patients, and the public for their continued support, understanding, and patience during this challenging period.

“It’s important that anyone who needs urgent medical help continues to come forward – using 999 in life-threatening emergencies and 111 for other urgent care. Anyone who is unsure about where to go should call the NHS on 111, or visit 111.nhs.uk for advice.”

As part of the critical incident response, the Trust is working closely with partners across the health and care system to safely discharge patients who no longer require acute hospital care and to reduce avoidable admissions.

It is currently reviewing patients scheduled for planned procedures and appointments. Unless you hear from the hospital directly, assume your procedure or appointment will go ahead as planned.

Anyone suffering from a winter virus is advised to stay at home, rest, drink plenty of fluids, and use over-the-counter medications such as paracetamol or ibuprofen to help manage symptoms.

Alternatives

Attending emergency departments for non-life-threatening conditions will result in an extremely long wait. If you need medical assistance, consider using alternative services such as NHS 111, your GP, local pharmacy or an urgent treatment centre. Advice and guidance are also available at 111.nhs.uk.

The Trust is asking for the public’s support to help it protect care for those who need it most:

  • Only attend the emergency department for a life-threatening illness or injury.
  • If a friend or loved one is ready for discharge, please collect them at the earliest opportunity if you are able to do so.
QEQM Photo Chris Constantine

‘Grinding to a halt’

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) says departments across the country’s hospitals are overcrowded

Dr Ian Higginson, RCEM President, said: “As we have repeatedly warned, the predictable return to high demand and full hospitals in our Emergency Departments after parts of the NHS shut down over the festive period means we are back to business as usual.

“Unfortunately, business as usual in winter means everything grinding to a halt, and patients bearing the brunt of it.

“Our departments are overcrowded, due to a lack of flow throughout the entire hospital system. At the back door, patients who are medically fit to leave have nowhere to go, often due to a lack of social care capacity, meaning bed occupancy has crept back up to very unsafe levels.

“This means that in EDs, some of the sickest patients are stuck unable to be admitted, often for hours, on trolleys waiting for a bed.

“A symptom of this is the unacceptably long waits that patients in ambulances have faced. This is despite policies aimed at ensuring handovers are no longer than 45 minutes, which seek to get ambulances back on the road but often at the expense of pushing even more patients into emergency departments. We need risk spread across the system, not just at the front door. There are only so many patients we can cram in.

“Things are looking pretty dire, and we are angry that our departments have been allowed to get into this state, and that this is accepted as normal.

“We need health service leaders, and politicians, to turn words into action to tackle the current state of EDs and for sustained improvements in flow to become a priority.”

Emergency department data

Data for November (most recent available) shows there were 25,696 attendances at East Kent Hospitals emergency departments that month. Of those 19832 were seen and then admitted, discharged or transferred within four hours but 1105 waited in excess of 12 hours.

Data obtained by The BMJ shows at least half a million patients were cared for via ‘corridor care’ in 2024/25 – referring to the practice of providing care to patients in hospital corridors or other non-designated areas, owing to overwhelming demand.

For East Kent Hospitals Trust, which has emergency departments at QEQM Margate and William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, The BMJ says the 2024-25 figure was 20,884, an 11% drop on the year before.

 

68 Comments

    • The number of people turning up at A&E is not a function of the number of houses. It depends on the number of people.

        • Not necessarily. There are plenty of households where twenty-someth8ngs are still living at home with their parents. We’re they to move out to a new home, there would still be the same nu.ber of parents and children, just not living under the same roof anymore.

          • How many are English lying in those beds .probably less than 50 % they keep on letting people arrive .and building houses in thanet yet the resourses cant cope as theres just to mamy people .no jobs .no water .no hospital beds .no Dr appointments availible. No nhs dentists . Thanets becoming a poverty town if it isnt already .

      • To be honest more people are going to hospital because you can’t get an appointment with your own doctors
        It’s so frustrating sometimes

    • Those migrants have to be put somewhere, normally cascaded older buildings, sometimes not.
      Yet, they are still arriving and nothing is done to halt the flow.
      No wonder the hospitals and other vital services are at max pressure. (Don’t tell me mass immigration is not a factor in this, don’t!)

      • How is it, Ton? Why are you allowing your xenophobia and racism to show your entire backside to the world?

        Don’t let facts get in the way of your hubris and pride (which always begets a fall)

        Net migration is down 80%

        “Compared to the peak: Net migration dropped from a peak of 944,000 in the year ending March 2023 to 204,000 in the year ending June 2025, which is a decrease of almost 80%.

        Year-on-year change: The figure of 204,000 is also a significant drop of nearly 70% compared to the 649,000 recorded in the year ending June 2024.

        Driving factors: The fall is primarily due to a decrease in non-EU nationals arriving for work and study purposes, particularly after government policy changes restricted the ability of most international students and care workers to bring dependents to the UK and raised salary thresholds for skilled worker visas.

        Visa changes: The number of study-related dependants and work-related dependants fell by approximately 85% and 65% respectively.

        Emigration: The number of people leaving the UK (emigration) has increased slightly to 693,000, with non-EU nationals accounting for the largest share of those emigrating.”

        • Statistics, statics and damned lies from the Liebour party.
          The country is supporting at least 4 million more souls than just a few years ago, FACT.
          Don’t tell anybody that you cannot see the massive increase of cars on Thanetv’s roads from just 10 years ago,. Don’t tell me you don’t hear non English languages constantly being spoken in the supermarkets as I now notice. Don’t tell me you don’t notice the doubling of house rental prices locally in recent years because of demand. I know a family personally that were paying £800 to rent a house 6-7 years ago and on moving house just recently the empty house has just been rented out again at £1750 a month – An ordinary house in the middle of Margate.
          No, there is no increase in demand here on Thanet, London or anny other part of the country according to your selected figures. Don’t make me laugh, open your eyes and ears.

          • 6/7 years ago if it was £800 to rent of course it’s going to be double now things are getting more expensive
            You can’t rely on paying that low rent now though could you

          • Mohibur Rahman.

            Wages and pensions have not doubled in that time – if only!
            Rents have increased exponentially in the same time because of demand because the population has massively increased because……….. do I need to go on?

      • Ton, without non British health workers the NHS would not function! I have had cancer surgery, a stroke, and two life threatening lung diseases, plus other health problems, and without the dedicated skilled foreign health workers I would be dead by now! Get over your xenophobia, the Social Care workers ditto that, without them we would be a 3rd world country!

        • I’m not talking about those that come here to fill jobs like that and well you know it! Stop conflating different types of immigrants..
          Firstly, this country should be actively training our British born citizens to train as nurses and doctors but are not doing so. Foreign trained personnel are cheaper but not necessarily better value. Some are, some are not
          Secondly, we are turning into a 3rd world country, rapidly. I used to know the East End of London quite well, I certainly spent a lot of time there as a youngster and also as an engineer in the area when working. I paid a visit to Whitechapel a few years ago, hadn’t been there for about 10 years. I felt a stranger in my own country, spot the white British, there weren’t many to the extent that I stood out amongst the ‘locals’, their shops and rubbish.
          Zenophobic?? Not at all, I just weep for the Cockney area that we all knew, including the Windrush people that were part of the scene but have now gone. Realism is something that you choose to ignore.
          To finish, not all immigrants are doctors, nurses or engineers – far from it. Get real.
          Glad you received excellent attention at the QEQM. All iI want now is to find an NHS dentist and see my doctor in a sensible time – another reason A&E is being overrun by those who can’t wait.

  2. fair comment Mr Checksfield , now let the nay sayers argue with that .on the occassions i have visited the a&e i have noticed that its always the same people there , and that they bring half a dozen or more relations with them , stopping the family gatherings would free some seats up straight away

    • “on the occassions i have visited the a&e i have noticed that its always the same people there , and that they bring half a dozen or more relations with the”

      So, like others who moan about traffic whilst forgetting they’re also traffic…

      “stopping the family gatherings would free some seats up straight away”

      and for those who cannot afford ad hoc child minders/don’t have family to help out? What then, Real World? You do have a solution to that problem, right?

  3. They’d soon find a place if the king turned up. Well, he ain’t coming, so they can fit someone else in.

  4. In AD2000 the N.H.S. employed
    1 million people. Today there are
    1.8 million. The population has not increased by 80%. So. What’s going on?
    When I moved down here the Q.E.Q.M. had not been built. Yet, there were never such “critical incidents” declared.
    We are living through a charade. A miasma. Where endless propaganda has rendered vast numbers of people susceptible to buzz phrases… like, “Protect the N.H.S.”…, etc.
    Just get on with the job for which you are paid and for which you have recently received above inflation pay rises. Maybe not striking like petulant, spoilt children would not have allowed a build up of arrears of work?
    Cry harder!

    • “for which you have recently received above inflation pay rises. ”

      After fourteen years of below inflation pay rises that didn’t keep up with the cost of living. Unlike a temu tory (reform) sockpupppet to not understand nuance, or even basic facts or logic… /s

      • All N.H.S. wage settlements are and always have been index-linked.
        Their unions have skewed the data to say otherwise. The reclassification of grades has certainly occurred. Rendering their data meaning.
        Like I said. 1M in 2000. 1.8M today. Sloth and inefficiency is endemic throughout the Public Sector.

    • Harry Webb -what a sad individual you are! Get on with job you are, paid to do! They have been overwhelmed by numbers you clown and doing their best under trying conditions. They need support not half baked comments from people like you.

  5. Why have all the hospitals closed in Thanet, when the population is growing ? Where has the money gone ? The lottery says the money goes to good causes, and Brexit promised more money to build them. Again they have all been “economical with the truth”

    • I agree that there should be more hospitals, at the very least for minor injuries, spread around. But the question is: when several hospitals were closed in Thanet, and replaced with QEQM, did the number of beds go up or down.
      The bottom line is: unless you’re gravely ill, don’t go to A&E. Use NHS 111 in the first instance.

  6. To Harry I say please move back from wherever you came from as you are a migrant.
    Thereabouts why the NHS is under pressure is:
    (A) and increasingly ageing population, with multiple morbidity.look at the pictures are the patients in their first flush of youth?
    (B) Austerity in the NHS and especially in local govt with concomitent burdens on the NHS.
    (C) A deficiency in care in the community, with too.many shipped off to residential care, where there is a ceaseless flow of ambulances bringing in patients that might otherwise have been treated in the community.
    (D) some misuse of A&E where other alternatives might have been a better choice.
    You are not going to stop development,but we need to plan for it better.
    Community care needs a boost with such things as poly clinics, minor treatment centres,and more money for pharmacies.
    Instead of jumping up and down like Harry and blaming everyone,make sure you don’t add to the burden of the NHS by living more healthily.
    You are not going to stop retirees like Harry moving down here, no matter how hard you protest, so perhaps we should prod our politicians to plan better for the future.

    • (E) Lifestyle choices. How many people get regular exercise these days? I went for a routine check-up yesterday, something that happens about twice a year since my 2018 heart-attack: both my weight and blood pressure were spot-on, perhaps due to the fact that I walk (or occasionally cycle) several miles EVERY day, regardless of weather. Now we have a whole genration or more of adults who were dropped and picked up from the school gates, and have barely exercised since.

  7. I had an iurgent but not quite life threatening appointment at QEQM today. The hospital was clean and calm. They were coping with building works well. I was treated thoughtfully and was grateful to receive such good medical care BUT you simply cannot treat an area like Thanet with its record number of multiple deprivations over time and not expect the pressure built up to not explode somewhere. We need better medicine and much more of it than other areas.

  8. Well , it does not take a mathematics master to know if you allow 4 million migrants into the country over just few years. They will require medical help too . I get very angry with these civil servants.

  9. Self inflicted conditions or injuries requiring treatment should go to a separate facility and pay for the service, why should those who arrive in QEQM with genuine a&e have to be near drunks or druggies or people who are to thick to look after themselves.

  12. Failing immune systems from an unfortunate and toxic experiment. My medical friends (and locals in their neighbourhoods across Thanet) see it all the time and there are numerous medical studies on it globally nowadays. The gaslighting is very telling.

  13. Having worked in A&E I know full well that the unit can be quite one minute and packed with patients the next. Some of those who attend are not accident cases or emergencies.
    Without doubt there has been an increase in the numbers arriving at A&E door corresponding with a number of extra houses and flats that have been built in the East area anyone who denies that is in cuckoo land.

  14. People who have lived in the area longer than me say there used to be many more hospitals. I remember cottage hospitals who dealt with the less technical cases.

  17. if we choose to go on holiday we need health insurance , in fact sometimes its compulsory. people that have never contibuted one penny towards the system can come here and get identical treatment as me , who paid into it for many years , try and do that abroad ? you will end up with a bill for thousands , not with us mugs and they know it.

  18. I think M Rees and Democrat are the same person as they could start an argument in a phone box by themselves. And you never see then in the same room…

  19. 4 minutes after my comment, the online stalker Checksfield makes yet another ridiculous comment! Checksfield s comments should be examined before they are allowed to be printed here, because of their racist and/or misogynistic content.

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