Graph shows the tide is turning at hospital trust

HOSPITALS across London faced an unimaginable task when the coronavirus pandemic began to sweep through the city.

Everywhere, NHS staff have spoken of working harder than ever to save the lives of thousands who fell seriously unwell.

As the virus began to reach what is now thought of as the peak in London, one west London hospital saw a higher number of deaths than other sites in the capital.

Some three weeks before the April 9 peak, bosses at Harrow’s Northwick Park Hospital declared a 24-hour critical emergency over a lack of critical care beds and increasing admittances of Covid-19 patients.

Various factors, including the elderly population in the surrounding area and its already busy A&E, put the hospital under immense strain.

Within the London North West University NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, 19 people died from the illness on April 9 with 29 more losing their lives the following day.

Staff at Northwick Park Hospital, which is handling the most serious cases, will no doubt live with the trauma of treating patients at one of London’s hardest-hit hospitals for many years.

It is testament to them, however, that by the end of April deaths at the hospital had drastically declined.

On April 29 no one was reported to have died within the trust for the first time since the height of the virus.

Since then, deaths, while all tragic, have been in the single digits.

The graph above shows how daily reported deaths from London North West Hospital Trust have fallen since April 9.