Government does not fully understand risks of relaxing covid infection control

The government has been warned that changes to covid-related infection prevention and control guidance will not enable a ‘rapid’ increase in the NHS’ capacity to tackle the elective care backlog and could pose significant ‘risks’.

Trust leaders have been told they no longer have to segregate patients into separate pathways according to “high”, “medium”, or “low” risk of covid-19 in updated IPC guidance issued by the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and UK Health Security Agency.

Following this guidance means the treatment of every patient without symptoms of a respiratory illness will be subject to the same precautions – such as one, rather than two, metre physical distancing. This, in theory, could create more capacity to treat larger numbers of patients.

A subsequent letter from NHS England highlighting the changes said: ”This guidance supports efficient delivery of NHS services to meet wider patient needs, via the return to pre-COVID-19 social distancing and standard IPC measures for patients who do not have infectious respiratory diseases.”

However, NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson told HSJ that many trusts are currently losing between 10 and 20% of their capacity due to “essential” IPC measures, and would not be able to abandon this approach quickly. 

He said: “There is a conception in some people in central government’s minds that by having got this guidance changed, we are now going to see a rapid recovery of activity levels and we’ll be able to more successfully manage the infection risk. That’s what people need to be realistic about – there is a risk here."

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Source: HSJ, 29 November 2021