One in three hospital beds for Covid cases

Pennine Acute virus patients make up 33% of admissions despite declining infection rates in community

ONE in three Pennine Acute hospital beds were occupied by people with coronavirus - more than any other NHS trust in the North West, new figures have revealed.

Data leaked to our sister paper the M.E.N. for November 5 showed that patients with the virus took up 33 per cent of beds at its four sites which include Rochdale Infirmary.

Generally hospital managers consider 30pc to be the trigger for elective cancellations and over the weekend it was confirmed that all Greater Manchester trusts were to do so this week.

Latest data published by Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham shows the North West as a whole and nine out of ten

●●Rochdale Infirmary, part of the Pennine Acute trust. One in three Pennine Acute hospital beds were occupied by patients with coronavirus, latest figures revealed

Greater Manchester boroughs - including Rochdale - here are now seeing declining cases in the community, while new hospital admissions and inpatient diagnoses have also fallen slightly across the region in the past week. Nevertheless there has been a further 14pc rise in Covid patients in hospital beds here, as people spend longer in hospital receiving treatment.

Care home cases are also continuing to rise and although Mr Burnham said they were lower than April and May, they are still a ‘cause for concern’.

Presenting new data at his regular press conference, the mayor said it showed ‘mixed news’.

Mr Burnham said that was an ‘encouraging picture, although we do have to point out, of course, that these are high case rates compared with the rest of the country’. But, nevertheless, some signs of movement in a more positive direction.”

“If you look at the numbers of patients in ICU and non-ICU beds, you will see a slight increase in the number of patients in ICU, but a fairly significant increase in the number of patients in non-ICU beds, which suggests that hospitals therefore are experiencing quite a lot of pressure and obviously finding it harder to discharge patients, which may explain some of the recent pressure on the ambulance service,” said the mayor.

He said Pennine Acute is currently under a ‘great deal of pressure’ and is likely to be offered support from elsewhere in the Greater Manchester hospital system.

Latest Covid-19 deaths in Greater Manchester show Pennine recorded 33 out of the conurbation’s 53 deaths in the last day.

That represents 62pc of the total, although the trust is predisposed to have higher numbers than some others in the region as it is one of the largest in the country. There have been 55 deaths in the past two days.

Mr Burnham said while there had been a ‘higher number of deaths’ at Pennine recently, there had also been ‘similar figures at different points in time at other hospitals’.

Meanwhile 4.1pc of care home residents now either have confirmed Covid-19 or are suffering symptoms.

That figure has been rising steadily every week, having stood at 0.6pc at the end of September, and is a ‘cause for concern’, said the mayor.

Greater Manchester did not collect that data at the April peak, but in early May the figure hit 6.7pc, he said.

Rochdale MP Tony Lloyd said: “Patients are patients and it does not matter whether someone has a serious heart condition or coronavirus, we want our NHS to be able to cope.

“I do support what the government are trying to do but we should have gone into lockdown earlier - I’m not going to oppose doing it now because we can use this period to lower the number of people with covid, and reset the clock for the NHS, that’s good.”