Covid absences add to pressure on NHS
HOSPITALS SEE MORE STAFF SICK OR SELF-ISOLATING
HAMPSHIRE’S NHS hospitals are losing increasing numbers of staff to Covid absence after the rate jumped by more than half in a fortnight.
The latest NHS England figures give a worrying update on how hospital trusts were coping with pressures on their resources in the week to Boxing Day.
While some data shows that the festive season saw small improvements in waiting times and the number of patients ready to go home from hospital, the Omicron wave is seeing increasing numbers of staff absent.
A total of 4,758 days were lost at Hampshire and Isle of Wight hospitals in the week ending December 26 because staff were sick or selfisolating due to Covid.
The overall total was up 24.4% from 3,824 the week before, and up 56.6% from 3,038 days lost a fortnight before that. There were 1,645 staff absent for any reason on December 26, the equivalent of onein-19 members of staff being off.
Demand on NHS resources meant 124 ambulances had to wait for more than 30 minutes to hand over patients at Hampshire hospitals’ A&Es in the week to Boxing Day (4.5%), including 48 waiting more than an hour (1.8%). That’s the equivalent of one-in-22 facing a wait of more than half-an-hour. The target is for hand overs to take less than 15 minutes.
That has improved from the previous week when 380 ambulances waited half-an-hour or longer (13.2%), with 191 waiting more than an hour (6.6%).
Delays to discharges in other parts of the hospital can make it more difficult to admit people from A&E.
On Boxing Day, Hampshire hospitals had 395 beds occupied by patients who no longer needed to be there, but who had not been discharged. That was the equivalent of 13% of general and acute and adult critical care beds.
The figures for this week compare to 399 beds occupied on the Sunday before, or 13.4 per cent of beds.
In Surrey, a total of 6,840 days were lost at hospitals in the week ending December 26 because staff were sick or self-isolating due to Covid. That was up 86% from 3,678 the week before, and up 172.3% from 2,512 days lost a fortnight ago.
There were 2,061 staff absent for any reason on December 26, the equivalent of one-in-16 workers.
Across England, the total number of days lost to the NHS due to Covid staff absence increased by 42% in the week ending December 26 compared to the week before (up from 124,855 to 176,914). There has been a 96% increase over the last two weeks. On Boxing Day (the most recent date available), 24,632 staff were absent through Covid-19 sickness of self-isolation at acute NHS hospital trusts. Overall staff absences increased by 9.2% per day on average, from 65,305 to 70,762.
On Boxing Day there were almost 1,300 fewer patients remaining in hospital who no longer met the criteria to reside compared to the same day the previous week (9,288 on December 26 down from 10,576 on December 19). Bed occupancy has decreased with 87% of adult general and acute beds occupied, down from 93% the previous week.
NHS national medical director Professor Stephen Powis, said: “We don’t yet know the full scale of rising Omicron cases and how this will affect people needing NHS treatment, but having hit a 10-month high for the number of patients in hospital with Covid while wrestling with sharply increasing staff absences, we are doing everything possible to free up beds and get people home to their loved ones – and in the last week hundreds more beds were freed up each day compared to the week before.
“On top of the incredible efforts made by staff to get people out of hospital safely, we are also making every possible preparation for the uncertain challenges of Omicron, including setting up new Nightingale surge hubs at hospitals across the country and recruiting thousands of nurses and reservists.”