Perfect storm
» Staff sickness & Covid surge causes chaos in hospitals » Ops axed as 24 ‘critical incidents’ declared across UK » 24-hour waits for ambulances, crews at ‘breaking point’
THE NHS is facing a crisis with soaring staff absences and a huge rise in Covid patients.
By last night, 24 trusts had declared major incidents and 17 hospitals in one area halted non-urgent cases.
Exhausted ambulance crews are overstretched, with some patients waiting 24 hours for a vehicle.
One union boss said: “We are nearly at breaking point. We are heading for the perfect storm, all the hospitals are full and we are seeing huge call volumes.”
THE number of NHS trusts declaring critical incidents soared last night to 24.
They have been caused by the surging level of Covid patients and a huge rise in hospital staff being absent as they have the virus too.
One in 15 people in England now has the disease, according to the latest official research – up from one in 25 the previous week.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “Hospitals who have declared critical incidents are essentially reaching out to staff who are on leave, on rest days or even recently retired and asking them to come back. So the situation is desperate.”
The critical incidents have all been declared in recent days.
Non-urgent operations have been axed at hospitals across north west England.
Some 17 hospitals in Greater Manchester have paused appointments for conditions that are not yet life-threatening.
Staff absences in the region are at 15% – the usual figure in winter is 5%. NHS North West boss Dr David Levy said its workers are under “fairly intense pressure”. Dr Mike Tildesley, a SAGE modeller, said it may be too late to introduce new restrictions to help the NHS in the coming weeks.
The number of Covid patients in hospital has soared across England in the past week.
It rose 52% in the east of England, 61% in the Midlands, 82% in the North West and 85% in the North East and Yorkshire.
University Hospitals Dorset was among those to declare a critical incident yesterday after running out of beds. Trusts in Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Devon, Norfolk and
Somerset have also issued the alert. Official figures yesterday showed 194,747 new Covid cases in the UK.
A further 334 people have died, though this includes a backlog of some deaths not reported since New Year’s Day.
The British Heart Foundation warned a “perfect storm” is “forcing the NHS into impossible situations”.
Meanwhile, a damning report by MPs says the
CRITICISM Tory Mr Hunt
Government has “no sign of any plan” to solve the NHS staffing crisis. The cross-party Health and Social Care committee said the record six million NHS waiting list will not be reversed without tackling the logjam on emergency wards. The former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who chairs the committee, said the NHS is suffering an “entirely predictable staffing crisis”. He added: “Omicron is exacerbating the problem, but we already had a serious staffing crisis, with a burnt-out workforce, 93,000 NHS vacancies and no sign of any plan to address this.”
Sara Gorton, of Unison, said: “Staff shortages have left the NHS running on empty throughout the pandemic.”
One in 20 people in Scotland and Wales have Covid, according to data from the Office for National Statistics random swab testing survey. martin.bagot@mirror.co.uk
@MartinBagot