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As BBC Scotland today reports a critical incident in NHS Grampian, we can report that, in 2024, the most recent year with a full report [above], NHS England reported 198 critical incidents plus 19 major [more serious] incidents; 217 declarations in total. Average duration was about 4.6 days. https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/annual-eprr-assurance-report-march-2025/
There was one NHS Scotland critical report in 2024, also in NHS Grampian.
In NHS emergency-preparedness terminology, a major incident is more serious and wider in scope than a critical incident. They sit in a recognised hierarchy of escalation:
- Business continuity incident – disruption to normal services that can usually be managed with local workarounds.
- Critical incident – a more serious internal operational escalation. The organisation (or a part of it) is losing, or is at risk of losing, the ability to deliver critical services, or patients/staff may be at risk of harm. It is typically declared by a trust or health board to trigger extra internal measures (cancelling non-urgent work, mutual aid within the system, command-and-control structures, etc.).
- Major incident – an event with serious, often multi-agency consequences that require special arrangements beyond one organisation. This is the Cabinet Office / JESIP definition used across UK emergency services. Examples include mass-casualty events, large-scale attacks, or incidents that overwhelm a whole system and need coordinated response from police, ambulance, fire, local authorities and multiple NHS organisations.
There have been no major incidents ever reported in NHS Scotland.
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