Welsh hospitals ‘could struggle with Covid-19 patients due to beds shortage’
WALES’ hospitals could struggle to cope with an influx of seriously unwell coronavirus patients due to a shortage of beds in intensive care, it is claimed.
Leading doctors have warned that hospital critical care units currently have around 90% of their beds occupied with patients.
But should Wales see an increase of desperately ill people with Covid19 who need urgent hospital care, these units may not have enough beds or equipment to manage.
This could lead to other areas of hospitals, such as operating theatres, being used as make-shift temporary intensive care units, medics claim.
It could also result in hundreds of routine appointments and operations being cancelled across Wales as staff are redeployed to help those in the greatest need.
Dr David Bailey, chairman of the British Medical Association’s Welsh Council, said: “Lack of beds, particularly critical care beds, is major concern, as evidence suggests that one in five coronavirus patients will need hospital treatment, with one in 20 needing critical care.
“The situation needs to be carefully monitored and effective planning at each hospital is essential to ensure the healthcare system can cope in the event of more cases.”
According to latest figures, the UK has 6.6 critical care beds per 100,000 population – way below the European average of 11.5.
Wales has only 5.4 beds per 100,000 people in intensive care.
In real terms, that means there were 153 daily intensive care beds available in Welsh hospitals, with an average of 80.7% of them taken up by patients on a day-to-day basis.
But staffing shortages have meant that units have had to shut beds on at least a weekly basis, meaning that the real occupancy rate could be far higher than the stats suggest.
Italy, which has seen more than 12,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus and a death toll of 827, has 12.5 critical care beds per 100,000. It has described its own healthcare system as “close to breaking point”.
All parts of the UK lag far behind countries such as the United States, which has 34 ICU beds per 100,000 people, Germany (29.2), Romania (21.4) and Kazakhstan (21.3).
An estimated 9,600 patients need intensive care facilities every year in Wales – a figure which is increasing by around 4% each year due to our ageing population.
Dr Daniele Bryden, vice dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, said the swine flu epidemic in 2009 was the last significant disease outbreak the UK faced.
“The detailed surge plans that have been developed in all four nations of the UK were able to cope with the additional requirements on critical care services, although it was a very difficult period,” she recealled.
“However, since 2009 there has been an accumulative increase in adult critical care activity of 4% per year. In parallel, there has not been a related increase in critical care resourcing, meaning we now have less resources to manage this.
“The Welsh Government has led the way in the UK with a full national and funded critical care review which is aiming to tackle the future needs of critical care.”
Dr Bailey said the entire NHS system could be brought to its knees without careful planning.
He added: “The NHS is already under intense strain like never before and our dedicated NHS staff are working incredibly hard in a health service with record patient waiting lists, patients being treated in hospital corridors and others waiting weeks for a GP appointment.
“If the virus escalates in scale, the impact on our health service will be grave across the whole system.
“Hospitals will start cancelling routine treatments to make space for more patients, and segregation of Covid-19 wards from the rest of the hospital will be essential.
“In turn, this will see immense