Doctors fear ‘Super Saturday’ revellers could overwhelm A&E units
HEALTH chiefs have urged drinkers to take it easy after pubs reopen on “Super Saturday”, amid fears A&E units could be overwhelmed.
Pubs, restaurants and bars will be allowed to reopen this weekend following a four-month closure.
But medics fear hospitals could be deluged by those who overdo the celebrations and warned that hospital A&E units, which have been largely free of drunk and disorderly patients during lockdown, can now only cope with about half their usual capacity.
In recent months, casualty departments have been redesigned to segregate groups of patients, and allow the screening of new arrivals.
Doctors said they could be less able to cope with sudden spikes in demand, which they fear could occur this weekend, when pubs reopen en masse.
Dr Katherine Henderson, the president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said: “We are nervous – we are bracing ourselves for this weekend. We do understand that people want to celebrate, but we’ve got to do this carefully. It is slightly scary for the NHS.” Police chiefs criticised the decision to lift the lockdown at the weekend, say- ing the build-up to July 4 had created a “countdown to carnival”, which was likely to fuel drunken and irresponsible behaviour.
Dr Henderson said hospital workers were “exhausted” and fearful of what “Super Saturday” might bring.
She said: “Staff have been working very hard for a long time. If they see a lot of people who have thrown caution to the wind, getting themselves into danger, getting themselves into fights – that is going to be really difficult.
“We need people to apply common sense, don’t get yourself so drunk you can’t get yourself home,” she said, adding that many A&E departments would bring in extra staff this weekend.
Dr Cliff Mann, the NHS England national clinical director for urgent and emergency care, urged the public to behave responsibly, but said the service was braced for spikes in demand.
“There are some A&ES where 75 per cent of attendances after 11pm are alcohol related – we would be naive to think we won’t see some of that again.”
He suggested hospitals would not tolerate rowdy behaviour, or attendances by those who do not need to be there. “If they don’t have an acute injury or emergency we will be inviting them to leave,” he said.
Dr Simon Walsh, the British Medical Association’s emergency medicine lead, said: “We’ve had to dramatically change the layouts of our A&E departments in order to segregate patients, so that means they can take about half as many people, in some cases less.
“We used to see A&E departments full of people with alcohol-related injuries, but we just don’t have the space to look after these patients on top of others with medical emergencies, and Covid patients.”
Dr Nick Scriven, the immediate past president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said recent brawls in Liverpool, Bournemouth and London even before pubs reopened had added to medics’ concerns. “The worry is that we see a sudden return to all the things that A&ES have seen so much less of in the last three months; the violence and injuries caused by drinking,” he said.
“There is real anxiety about what will happen this weekend.”