Second spike ‘a big concern for health staff’

HEALTH leaders have “very high” levels of concern about the possibility of a second spike in coronavirus cases, one expert has said.

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said the combination of a spike of cases with “exhausted staff” while the NHS tries to rebuild services could prove “challenging”.

He told the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coronavirus: “I would say in relation to the second spike issue or something coming, the levels of concern among our members – the people who are leading NHS trusts, who are leading in primary care and all levels in the systems – is very high.

“There’s real concern about winter and the compounding factors there, but also about an earlier spike.”

He said non-Covid-19 productivity in NHS trusts was currently at about 60%.

Meanwhile, he called for an “Amazon-style” way for the health and care system to order personal protective equipment (PPE) – whereby they can order it and have it arrive the next day.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the council of the British Medical Association (BMA), also raised concerns over PPE.

He also called for more transparency over PPE stockpiles, and admonished the Government for publicising “arbitrary figures” of “billions of items of PPE”, adding that single gloves were classed as one item, when medics need to wear a pair at once.

In its submission paper for the APPG, the BMA also said that the Government’s initial response to the outbreak “was marked by a failure to adequately prepare”.

The union said the Government needed to provide a detailed plan on how it will provide adequate PPE in the event of a second wave.

Meanwhile, Dr Nagpaul warned the NHS is entering its “busiest” time of year and is already facing a “huge backlog of care”.

He said the system needs to “coexist” by treating Covid-19 patients, as well as non-Covid-19 patients and those who suffer winter flu.

But he said a second spike should not be seen as an “inevitability”.

He added: “We need to make sure the current backlog is dealt with because the patients who have not been seen are patients who might have urgent problems: cardiac patients, respiratory patients, neurological patients.

“We need to systematically make sure that those patients who are most in need, who haven’t received treatment, are treated now.”