Risk of procedures being delayed as health chiefs plan more Covid beds

TAYSIDE health bosses have started to postpone procedures as staff respond to a large surge in Covid-19 cases.

There are currently 174 patients in the region’s Covid wards, which have space for 193 people, meaning the health board is at about 90% of its capacity.

Managers want to add 68 more beds as they move to the next phase of dealing with the second wave.

Decisions on postponing procedures are on a caseby-case basis, depending on how urgently the treatment is required.

Most of the region’s Covid-19 patients are in Ninewells.

NHS Tayside operational medical director Dr Pamela Johnston said staff are still delivering all emergency and unscheduled care, including cancer and some complex elective care, despite the rise in coronavirus cases.

She said: “We have seen an increase in community prevalence of Covid-19 which has resulted in an increase in admissions to our hospitals over the last two weeks.

“However, we still have a number of Covid-19 beds available before we have to move to the next phase, which will provide a further 68 beds.”

She said clinical teams had planned for this scenario for many months.

“Our plans are working well. So far, we have only had to stand down a small number of patients,” she said.

“This is down to the immense efforts of staff and their absolute commitment to their patients alongside a determination to keep as many services running as possible.

“However, given the reality of the situation we are now facing, if the time comes we must move to the next stage of our plan, this will impact on our ability to deal with lower priority, planned care patients in a safe way.

“If this happens, our clinical teams are determined to restart these services once the numbers of Covid-19 patients begins to decrease.

“The public should be reassured that from the outset of the pandemic our priority has always been to make sure everything we do is safe for patients and safe for our staff.”

An NHS Tayside spokeswoman said she could not specify areas of care affected so far as it risked identifying the small number of patients involved.

Health boards in other parts of Scotland are responding differently. NHS Lanarkshire, for example, has temporarily postponed all non-urgent elective procedures and a targeted range of outpatient appointments.