Services at the Furness General Hospital, Royal Lancaster Infirmary and Westmorland General Hospital are scheduled to return to normal tomorrow (Thursday).
Services at the hospitals in Kendal, Barrow and Lancaster run by University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust will mainly be returning to ‘business as usual’, following recent widespread flooding - with the exception of Queen Victoria Hospital in Morecambe.
All outpatient appointments and elective non-urgent operations will go ahead tomorrow as planned at Furness General Hospital, the Royal Lancaster Infirmary and Westmorland General Hospital.
Tomorrow and Friday’s Outpatient clinics at Queen Victoria Hospital (QVH) in Morecambe will be moved to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary (RLI). Patients who are affected will be contacted directly to discuss next steps. A drop-in clinic tomorrow afternoon for Audiology and a drop-in clinic for Dietetics on Friday will go ahead at the QVH. The Trust says it expects normal outpatient activity to resume at QVH on Monday morning.
Foluke Ajayi, Chief Operating Officer, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The last few days have been challenging for our Trust andother public sector organisations in Cumbria and Lancashire, however, we mustn’t forget the devastating impact the floods have had on the many thousands of local people who lost power and in some tragic case, their homes.
“Whilst we are returning to mainly ‘business as usual’, we are still dealing with significant numbers of people attending our hospitals. With this in mind, we are again asking for the public’s help in only using our Emergency Departments in the event of a genuine emergency so that our staff can continue to focus on those seriously ill patients that need urgent attention.
“We’d like to take this opportunity to offer our sincere gratitude to everyone who has supported us - our staff who have worked tirelessly to try to limit the impact on our patients; our partners for their advice and support; and the general public for bearing with us and offering to help where they could.
“We will continue to work hard until all of our services are back to normal and we are able to see those patients who had to have their appointments cancelled.”