Swindon's Great Western Hospital is one of eight across the country in the last few days to declare a critical incident in response to growing pressures.

But what is a critical incident? 

Hospitals across the board in the country have seen rising numbers of Covid admissions as the Omicron variant spreads rapidly. This is coupled with an influx of patients suffering from season illnesses like the flu and other respiratory conditions. 

Staff sickness, caused by Covid and other illnesses, are leaving hospitals with plummeting numbers of available workers, meaning they can't adequately cover all of the services they normally would. 

READ MORE: GWH declares critical incident as pressures grow

GWH, which has aready taken the step to heavily restrict visiting, has seen an 81 per cent increase in Covid admissions from Christmas Eve with the number going from 37 to 67, of which five are in intensive care. 

GWH also has almost 400 staff currently off sick, 180 of which either have Covid-19 or are isolating because of it, and another 180 are off for other reasons. 

Consequently GWH has declared a critical incident because it feels that the above factors set against a backdrop of an already widely pressured healthcare system mean it cannot provide the range of critical services it needs to without intervention being made.

A critical incident then does several things - it highlights that there is a significant problem, it enables senior leaders to call for help and most importantly it creates a formal interim internal governance structure to make prioritisation decisions at pace. 

In short - it enables hospital bosses to make difficult but necessary decisions to keep at much of the hospital running as possible. These might involve the cancellation of non-essential services and appointments, the redeployment of staff, the prioritsation of certain services and increased and concerted efforts to free up beds. 

Patients in hospital - who need to be in hospital - will still continue to get the care they need.