Wanted: 250,000 volunteers
Public to fill NHS gaps as death toll hits 422
THE HEALTH Secretary yesterday made an impassioned call for 250,000 civilian volunteers to help alleviate intense strain on the NHS as the death toll in the UK linked to coronavirus rose dramatically.
Leading the daily briefing in Downing Street, Matt Hancock urged healthy volunteers to come forward to fill the gaps in the health service which is facing its biggest challenge to treat those who have contracted coronavirus.
The Health Secretary’s announcement came as the UK reported the largest daily rise yet in deaths from the disease, with 87 fatalities added to the toll overnight, bringing the total to 422.
Four of those new deaths were in Leeds, meaning 13 people have now died after testing positive for Covid-19 in Yorkshire and the Humber.
A total of 11,788 recently retired NHS staff have returned to work and Mr Hancock said more than 35,000 extra staff would pour into the health service, including 5,500 final-year medics and 18,700 final-year student nurses who would “move to the frontline” next week.
Mr Hancock said: “I pay tribute to each and every one of those who is returning to the NHS at its hour of need.”
The volunteers would be asked to help the 1.5m people the Government has identified as being particularly vulnerable and who have been told to stay at home for 12 weeks.
Those who sign up would help with delivering medicines from pharmacies, driving patients to and from appointments or making regular phone calls to check on people isolating at home.
Once registered, volunteers can be called on by GPs, doctors, pharmacists, nurses, midwives, NHS 111 advisers and social-care staff via a call centre run by the Royal Voluntary Service, who will
match people who need help with volunteers who live near them.
Dr Nikki Kanani, the NHS Director of Primary Care, said: “Coronavirus is the biggest challenge we have ever faced, which is why we’re rallying the troops and telling the public, ‘Your NHS needs you’.”
She added: “This is one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments where a single action from one person can be the difference between life and death for another and simple acts of kindness are going to make all the difference in keeping some of the most vulnerable people well and out of hospital.”
However, the acute pressure on hospitals was laid bare as Mr Hancock unveiled a 4,000-bed temporary hospital, the Nightingale, would be opened in the ExCel Centre in London with the help of the military.
It came as the Health Service Journal reported London’s critical-care units were just four days from running out of beds unless action was taken. As of 9am yesterday, there had been 90,436 tests carried out countrywide, with 8,077 testing positive. In Yorkshire, 272 people have tested positive.
The Government has also come under pressure to provide better protective equipment for NHS staff.
Mr Hancock said 7.5m pieces of protective equipment, including facemasks, had been shipped out in the last 24 hours.
A hotline would allow NHS and care staff to request personal protective equipment if they did not have it.
The Armed Forces have been involved in the logistics and Mr Hancock said it had been “literally a military effort to get these millions of pieces of kit out to people”.