TOP MEDIC IS SORRY FOR OP DELAYS
OLDER PEOPLE DOMINATE COVID ADMISSIONS
A SENIOR medical director has apologised for the postponement of some non-urgent surgery because of the number of people with Covid-19.
Dr Keith Girling said people in their 50s, 60s and 70s now form the “biggest group” recently admitted with coronavirus.
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the QMC and City Hospital, was working to ensure many patients continued to receive vital care – while coping with the high coronavirus demand.
“What we’re trying to preserve is the patients that have cancer or have life or limbthreatening surgery, or surgery where any temporal delay could make a material difference to the outcome from the operation,” he said.
“On a daily basis we look at the lists that are going ahead, we look at the capacity and we seek to match the capacity to make sure that we use all of it that we have. We’re trying to minimise the number of cancellations to the absolute smallest number possible.”
The situation is being continually reviewed. Dr Girling said: “We don’t want to extend the cancellations a day longer than we have to.”
On Thursday, Trust chief executive Tracy Taylor confirmed some non-urgent surgery and appointments would be postponed until November 6 “following a dramatic increase in the number of patients with Covid-19 in our hospital”.
She added: “Over the last few days we have exceeded 200 patients with the virus in the hospital, and every day this is increasing by nearly another full ward of people.”
In April, during the first wave of the virus, she described the pandemic as the “biggest test” the NHS had ever faced.
Speaking about how the current situation compares, Dr Girling said: “The number of inpatients that we now have is very similar to the number of inpatients that we had at the peak in April.
“And we’re seeing around a ward’s-worth of new inpatients with Covid every day.
“However, the demand for critical care capacity from that group of patients is less than it was in April.
“We’re still seeing significant demands on our critical care facilities but significantly less than they were then.
“We’re trying to do our very best to maintain all services that we can in the remainder of the hospital whilst we manage the patients that come in with Covid and the normal emergency patients that we would expect to see at this time of year.”
Seven-day rolling data has shown the rate of coronavirus infections has risen in most of Nottinghamshire – but the number of new city cases has fallen.
Dr Girling said: “The patients that we’re admitting are upwards from their 30s – so 50s, 60s and 70s would probably be the biggest group. But there’s people at either sides of that.”
He added that the hospitals were not “particularly” admitting young patients with the virus.
He added: “It’s hard to believe that, back in February, none of us had experienced coronavirus and we had no understanding of it as an illness.
“And that was only a few months ago. We have learnt a huge amount over these last few months about this virus, about the condition it causes and about how best to treat it.
“And so there are a whole number of things that we are doing now that are quite different to when we first encountered coronavirus because we’ve learnt how we can best manage and treat patients with this condition.
“And, included in that, a very significant proportion of patients that have had coronavirus in Nottingham University Hospitals have been included in research trials of treatments so that we can be clear about which treatments are being effective and which treatments are not effective.”
The announcement about the postponement of non-urgent surgery came as talks continued over parts of Nottinghamshire entering Tier Three restrictions.
Tier Three – the “very high risk” category – means hospitality venues can only remain open if they serve substantial meals.
Dr Rebecca Acres, the British Medical Association’s East Midlands regional council chair, said: “The medical community in Nottingham understands that these new rules won’t be popular, but is urging everyone to take them seriously. Without a real effort to reduce infection rates, we will soon see a sharp increase in patients needing hospital care, and sadly a rise in deaths.
“But the Government needs to do more both to fight this virus and to support the people who are being hardest hit.”