Great Ormond Street Hospital declares incident ahead of nurses' strike

Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) has declared an incident ahead of this weekend's nurses' strike.

The world-renowned London children's hospital said it had "no choice", adding it "must protect" its patients.

According to NHS England, the "business continuity incident" announced by GOSH is defined as any event likely to disrupt delivery of services from "acceptable predefined levels".

This includes severe weather, flooding and fires, industrial action and cyber attacks, and it can lead to the declaration of a major or critical incident.

Mat Shaw, chief executive of GOSH, said: "We respect the right of our staff to take part in lawful industrial action, but after exhausting all options, at the moment we have serious concerns over how we will safely staff our hospital during the strike.

"There is nothing more important than the safety of our patients and so we have no choice but to declare a business continuity incident.

"These children have no voice in the debate and we must protect them.

"We urgently need safety exemptions for our intensive care units and other areas of the hospital."

Nurses have already walked out twice this year - on 6 and 7 February and on 18 and 19 January - but on those dates there were exemptions, so nursing cover was maintained in critical areas.

RCN general secretary Pat Cullen previously said the union was looking for a "significantly improved" offer "as soon as possible" in order to prevent strike action.

Earlier this month, Ms Cullen said following the walkout the union would "move immediately to ballot our members" on their next move.