South Central Ambulance Service has downgraded its critical incident alert, despite continuing pressure on the service.

South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) declared the critical incident on Monday (July 11) due to increasing pressure because of rising Covid-19 cases in the community, infections amongst staff and the on-going heatwave.

READ MORE: South Central Ambulance Service declares 'critical' incident

By declaring an incident, the service was able to seek further support from its partners and alert the wider healthcare system, as well as the public, to its existing challenges in reaching patients quickly.

The service has now downgraded the alert.

Sharing the news on Twitter, a spokesperson for South Central Ambulance Service said: “Earlier this morning we moved from our ‘critical incident’ status to an internal ‘business continuity’ status.

“The pressure we have been facing has eased but not gone away and we are expecting the next few days to remain very challenging due to high levels of demand.

“The very high temperatures expected in our region from Sunday to Tuesday and the impact of continuing challenges facing other parts of our local NHS and social care services.

“We would like to pay tribute to our staff, volunteers and partners who have worked with great professionalism, dedication & care over a challenging few days and we ask for the public’s help by appropriately using our 999 service for life-threatening or serious emergencies only and to contact NHS 111 online or by phone for urgent medical problems, or utilise local urgent treatment centres, GPs and pharmacies.”

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This story was written by Sophie Perry. She joined the team in 2021 as a digital reporter.

You can get in touch with her by emailing: sophie.perry@newsquest.co.uk

Follow her on Twitter @itssophieperry

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