NHS plea to stay away from A&E
SKY-HIGH Covid cases are pushing hospitals to breaking point and may derail efforts to clear the NHS backlog, health chiefs have warned.
In the latest worrying events, six hospitals urged patients to stay away from A&E except in “genuine, lifethreatening situations”.
And a major ambulance trust declared a critical incident in the early hours after a surge in callouts.
There were 16,587 Covid patients on wards in England yesterday, the highest level since mid-January and almost double a month ago.
Only two-fifths were primarily due to infection – but all must be isolated from other patients with strict control procedures.
Dr Layla McCay, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, said: “The urgent and emergency demand has really increased and of course everybody’s working very hard on the elective backlog. On top of that we now have this huge amount of Covid circulating and that is disrupting services. All of those things are creating a bit of a perfect storm.”
Around five million people are thought to be suffering Covid so having just 20,000 hospitalised in the UK showed the vaccines are doing their job, Dr McCay added.
But she said: “You have to nurse them in particular ways. All of that reduces capacity for other things.”
Pressures
Staff shortages are also adding to pressures, with more than 65,000 off work at acute NHS trusts in England at the end of March, including 24,000 absences linked to Covid. This was down from a peak of more than 94,000 in early January.
Dr McCay warned all this threatens to put the brakes on efforts to clear the backlog of six million people waiting for planned treatment.
She said: “Across the whole country the NHS is making good progress on the elective recovery and they are working incredibly hard.
“The frustrating thing is when we see high levels of Covid, that has the capacity to derail a lot of progress and really set back the service.”
Dr McCay added that with other important news dominating headlines, the public may be lulled into a false sense of security with the virus.
She said: “Covid is very much a problem – higher than it has been in the whole pandemic.
“The Government needs to be clear and honest about the extent to which Covid is causing disruption.”
Six hospital trusts in West Yorkshire and Harrogate – serving more than 2.5 million people – issued a joint statement on Tuesday warning that patients were waiting up to 12 hours to be seen in A&E.
The West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts, representing them, said attendances were up 14.2 per cent compared with the same week last year and urged people to only come in “life-threatening situations”.
In February, a quarter of 460,000 patients admitted to hospitals in England via emergency departments waited more than four hours before a decision was made to admit them. Some 16,404 patients waited more than 12 hours. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine said this was the second highest figure since records began.
South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) declared a critical incident yesterday after a surge in callouts. The service, which covers seven million residents across Berks, Bucks, Hants, Oxon, Sussex and Surrey,
asked the community to only call 999 in a serious emergency.
Patients who did not require an emergency response were being given advice and asked to make their own way to hospital.
Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said trusts across the country were “under enormous strain”. But she added: “Thanks to mass vaccination we’re not seeing the high levels of serious illness and deaths we’ve seen before. Covid-19 hasn’t gone away. We’re very concerned about the real pressures across the whole health and care system.”
An NHS spokesman said: “If you have a health concern, please come forward for the care you need and if invited get your vaccine at the earliest opportunity.”
IT IS horrendous that six hospitals have had to urge patients to stay away from A&E unless they are in “genuine, lifethreatening situations”.
Once again, the lack of capacity in our NHS has been cruelly exposed. This comes as concern mounts about the disastrous consequences if people who missed out on diagnoses and treatment during the pandemic do not get the help they need.
The intense Covid-compounded day-today pressures on the health service must not be allowed to derail urgent work to clear this NHS “backlog”. Similarly, it is deeply regrettable if people who believe they need emergency attention are deterred from coming forward.
Taxpayers are reaching into their pockets to provide extra billions for the NHS.We dearly hope the cash raised through increased National Insurance contributions will deliver profound results, saving lives and establishing a healthcare system that is not in a state of perpetual crisis.