Average of 764 hospital workers were off every day

SOARING numbers of Covid-19 patients at Leicester’s hospitals are coinciding with big leaps in staff absences.

Figures from last week show that every day an average of 764 staff members were off because they were either sick or self-isolating.

That was up 57 per cent on the figure a week earlier.

Meanwhile, The University of Leicester Hospitals NHS Trust reported it is now seeing 112 new Covid-19 patients being admitted every week, which is 70 per cent up on the week before, when it stood at 66. That means more pressure on staff and longer waits for patients who arrive by ambulance at the hospital.

Half of all patients arriving by ambulance at the Leicester Royal Infirmary A&E wing last week - nearly 500 people - had to wait more than 30 minutes to be handed over to hospital staff, while one in three - just over 300 people - waited more than an hour.

The target is for handover to happen within 15 minutes. Leicester’s are among the worst figures nationally.

According to the latest figures from January, 1,325 of the three hospitals’ 1,506 beds were full that day and of those, 113 beds had patients who were ready to be discharged but hadn’t been for various reasons.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson explained his plan for hospitals to “ride out” the Omicron surge - he said taking steps to reduce transmission through a lockdown would only increase disruption. He said: “Omicron is milder, so while hospital admissions are rising quickly, this is not yet translating into the same number needing intensive care seen in previous waves.

“We have a chance to ride out this Omicron wave without shutting down again.

“Some services will be disrupted by staff absences and if we all play our part the disruption we face can be far less severe than a national lockdown.”