NHS Grampian stands down critical incident after 'extreme pressure'

NHS Grampian has stood down a board-level "critical incident" which was declared at emergency departments in Aberdeen and Elgin.

It was put in place on Saturday night, with A&Es at both Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (ARI) and Dr Gray's Hospital both experiencing "extreme pressure".

NHS Grampian said it would retain a hospital-level critical incident status for Dr Gray's in Elgin.

A small number of patients were said to have been transferred to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness from Dr Gray's late on Saturday.

This is the first critical incident declared by the board since December 2024.

The Scottish government defines the status as any localised disruption which results in a board "losing its ability to deliver critical services, or, where patients and staff may be at risk of harm".

The last critical incident declared in Scotland was due to an IT fault at NHS Highland in June 2025.

In an update, NHS Grampian said that while pressures across the health and social care system continued, hospital capacity had improved at ARI.

Alex Stephen, who has taken over as NHS Grampian executive director on call, said: "The key area of pressure over the weekend came when Dr Gray's no longer had capacity to safely admit patients, compounded by staffing shortages, ambulance delays, lack of community capacity and increasing pressure at ARI.

"Retaining an incident management team approach for Dr Gray's will enable us to continue to focus on breaking the cycle of high bed occupancy at the hospital, including case-by-case reviews of all patients who are delayed in hospital and who are awaiting care in the community."

Stephen said the board appreciated it was a concerning time for the local community.

He added: "While teams across our health and social care system are stretched, they are also delivering excellent care day-in-day-out and it's important we don't lose sight of that.

"We are hugely grateful to colleagues across our local and regional health and social care system for being there to support us during a particularly challenging weekend."

Stephen added that a "very small" number of patients were transferred to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness from Dr Gray's Hospital in Elgin.

He thanked NHS Highland for its support.

He also apologised to anyone whose care had taken "longer than we would like this weekend or who had to travel further to access hospital care".