NHS staff still hit by Covid

The board of NHS Tayside has heard Covid-19 is continuing to take its toll on the workforce, although the situation has slightly improved over the last four weeks.

Nursing and midwifery director Claire Pearce told board members at their most recent public meeting over 60 people were in hospital with the disease at the beginning of August.

“Challenges tend to persist for our teams with the impact of Covid, which is continuing to impact on the hospital communities teams,” she said.

“We started the month of August with a daily figure of more than 60 confirmed Covid-positive patients across our hospitals.

“That continues to place a lot of pressure on the system in terms of nursing patients in isolation and the opening of additional Covid beds.”

However, Ms Pearce went on to say the daily figure for Covid-positive patients in hospital across the region had dipped to around half of what it had been at the start of the month.

“Over the last two weeks we’ve been fluctuating between 25 and 30 Covidpositive patients in hospital every day,” she said.

Board chair Lorna Birse-Stewart acknowledged the virus was still causing problems for staff and extended her gratitude to employees who had stayed the course during the worst times of the pandemic.

She told the meeting: “I’m very clear this is still a very challenging time for our staff. In terms of staff Covid is still very much having an impact across all our services.

“Many of our staff have been subject to Covid-19 over recent weeks and months and I just want to reflect and pass my thanks on to all our teams for their continued efforts.’’