Calls for tighter rules as hospital virus cases surge

PRESSURE is growing for the toughest coronavirus restrictions to be expanded across the country in the face of increasing strain on hospitals in England where the number of Covid-19 patients is at its highest ever level during the pandemic.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock is due to announce any changes to tier areas in a statement to the Commons today.

With case rates rising in all regions of England, and record patient numbers, any changes are likely to involve areas moving up a tier rather than down. Figures from NHS England showed there were 21,787 patients in NHS hospitals in England as of 8am on Tuesday, compared with 20,426 on Monday, and 18,974 at the first wave peak on April 12.

Trusts in England were told in a letter just before Christmas to begin planning for the use of Nightingale hospitals, although concerns have been raised around staffing the sites.

Five of the seven NHS regions in England are currently reporting a record number of Covid-19 hospital patients: Eastern England, London, the Midlands, south-east England and south-west England.

The other two regions, north-east and north-west England, remain below peak levels set in mid-November. One senior doctor said some trusts in the South East are considering the option of setting up tents outside hospitals - something normally reserved for sudden events such as terror attacks or industrial disasters - to triage patients.

Emergency medicine consultant Simon Walsh said staff are working in “major incident mode” and called on the Government to set out a “coherent plan” to get through the coming weeks. Dr Walsh, who is also deputy chairman of the British Medical Association’s UK consultants committee said: “(Trusts are) having crisis meetings, they’re calling on staff to come in to work if they’re able to on their days off.

“They are dealing with queues of ambulances outside many emergency departments, often with patients sat in the ambulances for many hours until they can be offloaded into the department because there simply isn’t any space to put them in.”

Total coronavirus cases hit a new record on Tuesday, rising above 50,000 cases for the first time, to 53,135 lab-confirmed cases.

While the number is likely to have been inflated by a delay in the reporting of data across the UK over Christmas - with some of the total including people who tested positive before December 25 - Dr Susan Hopkins said the figures are “largely a reflection of a real increase.”

The senior medical adviser for Public Health England, said “unprecedented levels” of Covid-19 infection was of “extreme concern”.

It is not possible to make direct comparisons with the level of infection during the first wave of the virus, because mass testing was only introduced in the UK in May, but it has been estimated there may have been as many 100,000 cases a day at the peak in late March and early April.

An expert adviser to the Government said national coronavirus restrictions are needed to prevent a “catastrophe” amid rising infections., Prof. Andrew Hayward, of the Government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said widespread Tier 4 restrictions - or even higher - are likely to be needed as the country moves towards “near-lockdown”. NHS Providers deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery told BBC Radio Five Live: “We need to see as much of the country as possible in Tier 4.”