THE current status of each of the acute hospitals in the Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group area is as follows:

Northern locality: North Devon District Hospital, Barnstaple- Red

Eastern locality: Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital- Red

Western locality: Derriford Hospital, Plymouth- Black

The NHS uses a national internal alert system based on the colours green, amber, red and black to rank how busy a local health and social care system is, taking into account issues such as bed space and the flow of patients.

There may be additional terms used internally between organisations but they do not form part of the national internal alert system.

Red and black alerts occur when there are greater pressures on the whole system, usually in the winter when people are more vulnerable to illness.

Some examples of when an alert may occur are when there is an outbreak of norovirus in the community, or high levels of flu.

This is because these airborne viruses are highly contagious and spread very quickly, causing an influx of patients to A&E departments.

Norovirus and flu are unpleasant for most people, but for some people they can lead to more serious illnesses, particularly for frail or elderly patients. Because of this, when there are outbreaks of these viruses, many people need to stay in hospital for longer and this affects the flow of patients through the hospitals.