Patients may be moved across UK
CRITICALLY ill patients could be moved hundreds of miles under plans to help hospitals in Covid- 19 hotspots deal with rising demand, it has emerged.
Trusts in London and the South- east are reportedly preparing to transfer patients to the South- west, while patients in the east of England could be taken to the Midlands.
The news came as more than 50,000 new UK coronavirus cases were confirmed for the sixth consecutive day, at 54,990. A further 454 tragic Covid19 deaths were also announced. NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson warned that the number of Covid- 19 patients in English hospitals had risen by a third in just eight days.
On Christmas Day there were 17,700 on wards and this rose to 23,500 by January 2. Mr Hopson said: “That’s something like 12 extra full hospitals, full of Covid patients.”
The Doctors’ Association UK yesterday revealed it has written to Boris Johnson calling for a full lockdown “to avert a national disaster”. The letter warned that the country was in the midst of the toughest winter the NHS had ever seen, exacerbated by the new variant of coronavirus.
It said: “Sickness rates among NHS staff are double to treble compared to last winter and there are real worries that safe patient care could be compromised by the sheer number of patients needing care, and staffing ratios not seen in peacetime. If this trend continues…[ it] could then lead the NHS to ( or over) the brink of collapse.”