A CRITICAL incident has been declared at the Royal Oldham Hospital after almost a week of ‘significant’ IT issues that have triggered delays to patient care.

Bosses at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Trust (NCA) which runs Royal Oldham are warning patients to avoid the hospital’s emergency department unless urgent.

The hospital group is working round the clock to resolve the IT issues which have caused disruption to digital clinical systems.

The trust revealed they have been tackling the problems since Wednesday (May 18) at Royal Oldham, Bury, Rochdale, and North Manchester General Hospital which have caused disruption and instability issues.

The trust's Digital IT team continues to investigate the issues with the relevant technology providers to resolve this.

In a statement released today, May 24, Dr Chris Brookes, deputy chief executive and chief medical officer for the NCA, said: “We are still working hard to resolve the significant IT issues that have been affecting some of our digital systems at our hospitals at Oldham, Bury and Rochdale, as well as North Manchester General Hospital. Salford Royal is unaffected.

“This means that our clinical teams are continuing to rely on our robust contingency plans for such critical incidents.

“Patient safety and maintaining essential services remains our priority. We are doing everything we can to fix the IT issues and to limit disruption to patients and our services.

"However, unfortunately some patients may experience some delays and additional waiting across some of our services such as outpatient appointments, diagnostic tests, or scans. We apologise for this."

He added: “All patient records and personal data held by the NHS and trust remains secure and unaffected.

“Patients who have a hospital appointment whether for planned surgery or as an outpatient should continue to attend unless they are contacted directly by the trust and told otherwise.

“Our Emergency Departments are particularly busy at the moment. For those who feel they need to attend our emergency departments, they are likely to be waiting longer than normal if they have minor ailments. We are asking the public to think carefully before attending.

“We would, as always, recommend that you contact NHS 111 or seek advice from your local pharmacy or GP.”

For minor illnesses and ailments, patients can check which service is right for them by calling NHS 111 or going online to the NHS 111 website.

The NHS 111 telephone advice service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Calls to the service are free from landlines and mobile phones.