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Found 965 results
  1. News Article
    Thousands of patients a year are dying because of overcrowding in A&E units in Britain, and more fatalities will follow this winter, emergency care doctors claim. An estimated 4,519 people in England died in 2020-21 as a direct result of people receiving less than ideal care while delayed in A&E waiting to start treatment in the hospital. “To say this figure is shocking is an understatement. Quite simply, crowding kills,” said Dr Adrian Boyle, a vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM). There have also been 709 deaths in Wales and 303 in Scotland so far this year for the same reason, according to a report by the college. Another 566 excess deaths caused by overcrowding occurred in Northern Ireland in 2020-21. The 4,519 in England “may be an underestimate”, it adds. The four figures taken together mean the college has identified at least 6,097 deaths across the four home nations that it believes occurred because overcrowding hampered the person’s treatment. “There’s a lot of human misery behind these figures. It’s uncomfortable and unbearable that people are being put through this. It’s impossible not to feel upset and angry about this,” Boyle said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 18 November 2021
  2. News Article
    An inspection at a failing hospital trust has identified "some progress" but its services are still inadequate. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspected the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) in August. The Trust has been in special measures since 2018 and its maternity services are subject of a review following a high rate of baby and maternal deaths. The CQC said SaTH still had "significant work to do" to improve its patient care and safety standards. Inspectors highlighted particular concerns around risk management at the Trust which it said was "inconsistent" and and urgent and emergency care where patients "did not always receive timely assessment". The CQC also reported a shortage of staff working in end-of-life care and midwifery, however maternity staff were said to have "an exceptionally dedicated and caring approach". "I recognise the enormous pressure NHS services are under across the country and that usual expectations cannot always be maintained, but it is important they do all they can to mitigate risks to patient safety while facing these pressures," chief inspector of hospitals, Ted Baker, said. "While the trust continues to have significant work to do to provide care that meets standards people have a right to expect, it is providing more effective care overall. "However, its risk management remains inconsistent and we are not assured it is doing all it can to ensure people's safety." Read full story Source: BBC News, 18 November 2021
  3. News Article
    The mother of a man who took his own life said bereaved families would be left "in limbo" by a mental health trust's serious incident report delays. Local health officials have raised concerns over the "timeliness" of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust's (CPFT) reports. Maria Nowshadi, whose son James died in 2020, said they should be done quickly "so there's answers for families". Ms Nowshadi said: "These investigations should happen in a timely, quick manner so there's answers for families, but also in case there's any learning to be had... to make sure there's no further deaths that happen in the same way, because of any errors within the system." She said when the original date the report was due to be completed passed, she "reached the stage where I was looking at the mailbox every day". She said she told a patient liaison officer: "This is actually starting to affect my mental health. The chief nurse at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough's Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), Carol Anderson, said there were "concerns... [around] serious incident processes and reporting" at CPFT. A CCG spokeswoman added they had agreed an extension with CPFT "for the completion of serious incident reports due to additional pressures due to the pandemic and staff redeployment". "Our overall concern is the timeliness of serious incident reporting, so that we can ensure that learning is put in place as soon as possible," she added. Read full story Source: BBC News, 17 November 2021
  4. News Article
    A patient suffering a mental health crisis was made to sleep overnight on the floor of an NHS hospital because it had no spare beds, The Independent has learned. On Sunday, Mr Ben Ashcroft was given a mattress on the floor at Barnsley Hospital where he had been admitted after waiting for 36 hours at a different mental health hospital. He described the situation as being “treated like a prisoner”, adding: “An animal is treated better than this. I’m poorly and you think this acceptable to put me in room like this. This all I have in room. Rather be in prison.” Mr Ashcroft was detained, earlier in the week, under the Mental Health Act at Calderdale Royal Hospital, in West Yorkshire. But this hospital had no beds available and transferred him to another site in Barnsley where he was taken to a room with just a mattress. In a statement to The Independent, the trust said demand for beds over the weekend was “exceptionally high” adding “with this level of demand we took short-term measures to ensure all our service users were kept safe”. Read full story Source: 15 November 2021
  5. News Article
    People are dying in the back of ambulances and up to 160,000 more a year are coming to harm because they are stuck outside hospitals unable to be offloaded to A&E, a bombshell report has revealed. Patients are also dying soon after finally getting admitted to hospital after spending long periods in the back of an ambulance, while others still in their own homes are not being saved because paramedics are trapped at A&E and unable to answer 999 calls, said the report by NHS ambulance service bosses in England. In addition, about 12,000 of the 160,000 are suffering “severe harm” such as a permanent setback to their health. These include people with life-threatening health emergencies such as chest pains, sepsis, heart problems, epilepsy and COVID-19 because growing numbers of paramedics are having to wait increasingly long times to hand over a patient to A&E staff. Labour and the Liberal Democrats said the “staggering” extent of damage to patients’ health underlined the risks posed by the deepening crisis facing NHS ambulance services. The report, seen by the Guardian, has been drawn up by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) and is based on official NHS figures, which until now were secret. AACE represents the chief executives of England’s 10 regional ambulance services, all of which have had to declare an alert in recent months after being faced with unprecedented demands for help. It concludes that: “When very sick patients arrive at hospital and then have to wait an excessive time for handover to emergency department clinicians to receive assessment and definitive care, it is entirely predictable and almost inevitable that some level of harm will arise. “This may take the form of a deteriorating medical or physical condition, or distress and anxiety, potentially affecting the outcome for patients and definitely creating a poor patient experience.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 November 2021
  6. News Article
    Nursing leaders have highlighted 10 pressures on health and social care services which they say have created “unsustainable, untenable” conditions. A report from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said members working across health and social care in England dispute statements that the current situation in health and care is sustainable. NHS hospital waiting times is listed as one of the 10 indicators with the report referring to this issue as “clearly a symptom of an unsustainable system”. The report, 10 Unsustainable Pressures on the Health and Care System in England, refers to “corridor care” – time spent on trolleys in hospital corridors before being admitted to a hospital bed. “We are clear that delivery of care within inadequate environments such as that frequently referred to as ‘corridor care’ or ‘corridor nursing’ is fundamentally unsafe and must not be normalised,” the report says. The 10 pressures also include high COVID-19 infection rates, NHS nursing workforce vacancy rate, social care workforce vacancies and NHS elective/community waiting times. The report says: “Action needs to be taken to retain as many nursing staff as possible in light of serious staffing vacancies, as well as high levels of exhaustion and burnout. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 15 November 2021
  7. News Article
    Family doctors have reopened their bitter dispute with the government by accusing Sajid Javid of misleading MPs and the public by blaming overloaded A&Es on a lack of GP appointments. The Royal College of GPs has told the health secretary in a strongly worded letter that there is no basis for the claim, which he made to MPs last week and which was widely covered by the media. In it Prof Martin Marshall, the college’s chair, said that its 54,000 members “are dismayed and disappointed at the media coverage of your evidence session, which suggested that the lack of face-to-face GP appointments was placing additional strain on accident and emergency departments”. He disputed Javid’s claim that there is evidence which links the issues. He wrote: “You told the [health and social care select] committee you had seen data which showed that more patients were presenting at A&E departments because they were unable to access primary care. I am not aware of any evidence to suggest that this is happening and would welcome sight of any data you have.” Tensions are simmering between GPs and the government since Javid’s edict last month that GPs in England must see any patient who wants an in-person appointment. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 12 November 2021
  8. News Article
    Patient safety in the NHS in England is being put at “unacceptably high” risk, with severe staff shortages leaving hospitals, GP surgeries and A&E units struggling to cope with soaring demand, health chiefs have warned. The health service has hit “breaking point”, the leaders say, with record numbers of patients seeking care. Nine in 10 NHS chief executives, chairs and directors have reported this week that the pressures on their organisation have become unsustainable. The same proportion is sounding “alarm bells” over staffing, with the lack of doctors, nurses and other health workers putting lives of patients at risk. Sajid Javid, the health secretary, has come under fire for recently claiming, at a No 10 press conference, that he did not believe the pressure on the NHS was unsustainable. But the survey of 451 NHS leaders in England finds the health service already at “tipping point”. The results of the poll, conducted by the NHS Confederation, which represents the healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, show that 88% of the leaders think the demands on their organisation are unsustainable, and 87% believe a lack of staffing in the NHS as a whole is putting patient safety and care at risk. Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “Almost every healthcare leader we’ve spoken to is warning that the NHS is under unsustainable pressure, and they are worried the situation will worsen, as we head into deep midwinter, unless action is taken. They are also sounding alarm bells over risks to patient safety if their services become overwhelmed, on top of a severe workforce crisis." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 10 November 2021
  9. News Article
    Lives are at risk because patients are facing unacceptably long waits for a 999 response, paramedics across the UK have told a BBC investigation. Average waits for emergency callouts for problems such as heart attacks and strokes are taking more than twice as long as they should in England. Targets are being missed in the rest of UK too, with some seriously-ill waiting up to nine hours for an ambulance. There are numerous investigations ongoing into deaths linked to delays. The problems have forced all ambulance services to be put on their highest levels of alert - meaning patients who can make their own way to hospital are told to do so. A number of services have also brought in the military to support crews. The BBC has received reports of numerous serious incidents across the UK. Margaret Root, 82, waited nearly six hours for an ambulance to come following a stroke, and she then waited for another three hours outside hospital. When she was finally admitted, her family was told it was too late to give her the drugs needed to reverse the effects of the stroke. Her granddaughter Christina White-Smith said her grandmother had been "hugely let down". She said she did not blame the staff because they were "amazing" when they got to her grandmother, but said she is angry the NHS is not getting the help it needs. "I don't think people are aware of the severity of the situation." Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 November 2021
  10. News Article
    Bed occupancy in England’s hospitals has already reached normal peak winter levels, NHS leaders have warned. While modelling suggests that the rise in Covid infection levels appears to have stalled for now, the chief executive of NHS Providers has stressed that bed occupancy levels at acute hospitals are already at 94-96%, an “unprecedented” situation not normally seen until the middle of winter. It comes as long waiting times in England’s emergency departments are becoming normal, with the number of patients waiting for more than 12 hours increasing tenfold since 2019. Meanwhile, the NHS is undergoing a mounting workforce crisis and an enormous backlog of routine treatments that have built up over the pandemic. Six healthcare workers describe to the The Guardian the pressures they are facing at the moment, highlighting staff shortages, rising wait times and abuse toward NHS workers. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 8 November 2021
  11. News Article
    Inside the emergency department at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan, staff members are struggling to care for patients showing up much sicker than they’ve ever seen. Tiffani Dusang, the ER’s nursing director, practically vibrates with pent-up anxiety, looking at patients lying on a long line of stretchers pushed up against the beige walls of the hospital hallways. “It’s hard to watch,” she said. But there’s nothing she can do. The ER’s 72 rooms are already filled. “I always feel very, very bad when I walk down the hallway and see that people are in pain, or needing to sleep, or needing quiet. But they have to be in the hallway with, as you can see, 10 or 15 people walking by every minute,” Dusang said. The scene is a stark contrast to where this US emergency department — and thousands of others — were at the start of the pandemic. Except for initial hot spots like New York City, in spring 2020 many ERs across the country were often eerily empty. Terrified of contracting covid-19, people who were sick with other things did their best to stay away from hospitals. Visits to emergency rooms dropped to half their typical levels, according to the Epic Health Research Network, and didn’t fully rebound until this summer. But now, they’re too full. Even in parts of the country where covid isn’t overwhelming the health system, patients are showing up to the ER sicker than before the pandemic, their diseases more advanced and in need of more complicated care. Read full story Source: Kaiser Health News, 29 October 2021
  12. News Article
    Huge waiting lists have left patients questioning whether their lives are worth living, a surgeon has warned. Paul Williams, an orthopaedic surgeon at Neath Port Talbot Hospital, dubbed the effect of long delays on mental and physical health "horrific". A health think-tank said waiting times were the biggest challenge the NHS in Wales has ever faced. The Welsh government said it wanted to "radically transform" how healthcare was delivered. Mr Williams said: "To be living with pain from an arthritic joint is terrible. "We sent out a questionnaire recently and many of the patients have actually replied that they're questioning if their life is worth living because of the pain they're in." The latest figures for the Welsh NHS showed another record high for those waiting for hospital treatment. The number of patients waiting more than 36 weeks has grown from 25,634 in February 2020 to 243,674 by August 2021. The longest waits included 56,279 people who needed orthopaedic or trauma treatment. Read full story Source: BBC News, 3 November 2021
  13. News Article
    Planned operations including ”priority two” procedures were postponed at short notice at one of England’s largest hospital trusts earlier this week due to rising covid compounding other operational pressures, HSJ understands. Several sources said Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust cancelled the large majority of elective operations scheduled for Tuesday 2 November due to rising occupancy in intensive care and throughout the trust, particularly linked to increasing numbers of covid patients. The postponed operations included ‘priority two’ cases, which must be undertaken within one month to avoid further harm and deterioration, a well placed source told HSJ. The trust said it did not, however, cancel ‘priority one’ urgent operations, which must be performed within 72 hours. It said most elective operations resumed on Wednesday as pressure had “eased a little” since Tuesday. Some daycase surgery was also postponed, it said, as areas had to be repurposed for emergency care. One concerned family member of a Leeds patient whose operation was cancelled, who contacted HSJ, said: ”My relative is on the cardiology list and might not be fit enough for the op if there are further delays — that could be fatal.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 November 2021
  14. News Article
    Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has warned extra funding for the NHS “will unravel quickly” without the extra doctors and nurses needed. The health committee chair said today that the lack of any mention of workforce training budgets in the Chancellor’s speech on Wednesday was “the big gap” in news for the NHS. Before the budget, Mr Hunt, who served as health secretary for six years and who has accepted he did not do enough to increase staffing levels in the NHS, said a workforce plan for the NHS was needed. In the budget documents, released after the Chancellor Rishi Sunak had finished speaking, the Treasury confirmed only that it would continue to fund workforce training and repeated existing promises around 50,000 extra nurses. But many experts including the Health Foundation and think tanks as well as NHS leaders have said what is needed is a properly costed long term workforce plan so that the NHS can train enough staff to meet future patient demand. Read full story Source: The Independent, 28 October 2021
  15. News Article
    A senior doctor has warned that paediatric intensive care units (PICUs) are ‘as pressured as I can ever recall’ – despite the absence of cold weather, which typically leads to higher demand levels. James Fraser, president of the Paediatric Critical Care Society, said national bed occupancy in PICUs has “often been greater than 95 per cent” over recent weeks, while several units have reported 100 per cent occupancy. He said some children have had to be transferred between regions in order to admit them to a bed. PICUs are often under more pressure during winter, due to seasonal RSV and other viral infections. But high demand levels have started earlier this year, which has meant severely ill children have occasionally waited longer in local hospitals before being admitted to PICUs, and have sometimes had to be transferred to another site. Mr Fraser told HSJ: “[PICUs] are really busy, as pressured as I can ever recall them. “Every winter PICUs are under huge pressure due to seasonal RSV bronchiolitis. This usually happens between November and February. This year we always anticipated it would be a much longer season. It’s putting a lot of pressure on our national bed base. “What is different is we have been under this pressure earlier in the year with RSV and other viral chest infections. We have been under this pressure for a month. The pressure is both the number of patients and there are a lot of staff off having to self-isolate." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 29 October 2021
  16. News Article
    A Liverpool NHS trust has been rated as "requires improvement" by the health service watchdog due to concerns over care and safety. The moves comes following inspections at Aintree University Hospital and Royal Liverpool University Hospital. Inspectors said Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust required improvement in safety while it was classed as inadequate for leadership. The trust said "immediate action" had been taken to address the concerns. Ted Baker, chief inspector of hospitals at the Care Quality Commission, said the inspections in June and July highlighted concerns that the trust's leadership team "had a lack of oversight of what was happening on the frontline". Mr Baker said "lengthy delays" and "poor monitoring" were putting patients at serious risk of harm, and the trust was rated as requires improvement overall. He added: "We were particularly concerned about how long people were waiting to be admitted onto medical wards and by the absence of effective processes to prioritise patients for treatment based on their conditions. "There weren't always the right number of staff with the right skills and training to treat people effectively or keep them safe in the trust's emergency departments and on medical wards." Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 October 2021
  17. News Article
    People are dying at home without the correct nursing support or pain relief because of staff shortages, according to the end-of-life charity Marie Curie. One in three nurses, responding to a survey by the charity and Nursing Standard, say a lack of staff is the main challenge providing quality care to dying people. More than half of the nurses said they feel the standard of care has deteriorated during the coronavirus pandemic. Some 548 nursing staff across acute and community settings in the UK completed the survey in September. They raise concerns about the increased number of people dying at home and insufficient numbers of community nurses to support these people and their families. One nurse who responded to the survey said: "If more [people] are dying at home then there is a huge pressure on local district nursing teams which struggle with staffing as it is." Julie Pearce, chief nurse and executive director of quality and caring services at Marie Curie, said: "The pandemic has accelerated change across many care settings. "More people are dying at home and staffing to support this shift isn't there. "The data shows a hidden crisis happening behind closed doors and people dying without access to pain relief or the dignity they deserve." Read full story Source: The Independent, 27 October 2021
  18. News Article
    A major hospital has declared a “critical incident” after a surge in demand saw more than 100 patients awaiting treatment in A&E and 25 ambulances queueing outside. The Royal Cornwall Hospital Treliske, in Truro said “unprecedented” pressure this week is worse “than at any point during the pandemic.” It urged “families, friends and neighbours” to collect any patients who are able to “to leave hospital sooner.” Managers at Cornwall’s main hospital raised the operating level from OPEL4 — known as a ‘black alert’ — to an ‘internal critical incident’ to allow for greater cooperation to ease the crisis. It comes as the government is under intense pressure to reimpose some COVID-19 measures amid a surge in cases, with many other NHS clinics and hospitals across the country facing similar pressure. Allister Grant, medical director of the RCHT, said: “There is unprecedented demand on health and care services in Cornwall, more so this week than at any point during the pandemic. “As a result, we have escalated our operational level from OPEL4 to an internal critical incident. “Pressure will always be most visible at the Emergency Department where ambulances are waiting, and our priority here is to move people into wards as soon as we can.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 21 October 2021
  19. News Article
    Some trainee doctors and consultants at one Welsh health board are "scared to come to work", a report has found. A report by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) described "frightening experiences" staff faced at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board. Chronic understaffing and excessive workloads at the Grange hospital in Cwmbran were causing "very serious patient safety concerns", it added. The Health Board said it had taken the findings of the report very seriously. The report, obtained by BBC Wales, said that some trainee doctors and consultants were worried about working in case they lost their licence to practise. It also said the problems had caused some consultants to feel demoralised and on the brink of leaving. One trainee told the authors of the report: "On one overnight shift, I treated a four-year-old with seizures. The ambulance took six hours. Colleagues treated an 18-month-old with burns. Lots of kids come in with respiratory distress. Paediatric cases are not uncommon. We've treated stabbing victims. Colleagues delivered a baby earlier in the minor injuries unit. These things shouldn't happen at all." Another trainee said: "There's so much patient movement with [this] model. I recently sent someone from Nevill Hall to the Grange to get a scan, then to the [Royal] Gwent to get a follow-up procedure, then back to Nevill Hall. "That's three bed moves, three ambulance crews and three medical people dealing with the same patient. It's extremely inefficient." And another added: "I worry about the safety of the patients coming into this hospital." Read full story Source: BBC News,
  20. News Article
    An NHS trust has spent more than two weeks running on emergency measures after skyrocketing demand since mid-September, while others have kept people waiting for more than a dozen hours in the backs of ambulances. The Independent has learnt one patient in the West Midlands spent 13 hours waiting to be handed over to staff at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals Trust. Gloucester Hospitals Trust declared its internal incident on 19 September and only stood it down on 5 October, while London’s Barnet Hospital took similar extraordinary action on Monday due to high demand. And at North Middlesex Hospital staff saw more than 200 patients crowd into the emergency department on Monday afternoon. Declaring an internal incident is designed to activate measures that help hospitals deal with a sudden peak of demand and should only last for a short time. Such pressures are being felt across the country with NHS managers seriously concerned about what the coming months will look like as temperatures dip. One said they had not seen things as bad in more than a decade. Read full story Source: The Independent, 13 October 2021
  21. News Article
    The Becker's Clinical Leadership & Infection Control editorial team chose the top 10 patient safety issues for healthcare leaders to prioritise in 2021, presented below in no particular order, based on news, study findings and trends reported in the past year. COVID-19 Healthcare staffing shortages Missed and delayed diagnoses Drug and medicine supply shortages Low vaccination coverage and disease resurgance Clinical burnout Health equity Healthcare-associated infections Surgical mistakes Standardising safety efforts. Read full story Source: Becker's Healthcare, 30 December 2020
  22. News Article
    Hospital chiefs in the South West have warned the region will not avoid the extreme pressures felt by other parts of the NHS amid rapidly rising numbers of COVID-19 inpatients. The region was the least affected area of England during the pandemic’s first wave, but the medical director of two acute trusts yesterday predicted a “tidal wave” of COVID-19 coming to the West Country. Adrian Harris, medical director at Royal Devon and Exeter Foundation Trust and Northern Devon Healthcare Trust (NDHT), said the region faced an “absolute crisis” and individual trusts would be “hanging on by their fingernails”. His comments, made at NDHT’s board meeting, came on the same day HSJ revealed the South West region now has the fastest growth in COVID-19 inpatients. Although the region is England’s least densely populated, it also has the lowest hospital capacity per capita in the country. Dr Harris said: “We hope and we pray that the lockdown has come in time for Devon. My personal view — and of my colleagues around the country — is that there’s a tidal wave of COVID-19 coming to the West Country." “We are preparing to be hit as hard as the East of England. If we are hit as hard, we will be hanging on by our fingernails and we are planning accordingly.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 8 January 2021
  23. News Article
    Patients calling NHS 111 in London could face a 30-hour wait before being admitted to a hospital bed, the capital’s ambulance service has warned. Slides presented by London Ambulance Service Trust at a webinar with NHS London this week showed “category three” patients faced long delays at all stages of the process. The length of each stage was said to be as follows: having calls answered at 111 centres (20 mins); the “revalidation” of the call before it is passed to 999 (two hours); 10 to 12 hour waits for an ambulance; and similar waits in emergency departments before being admitted to a bed. Category three calls are considered urgent, but not immediately life-threatening. The calls could involve abdominal pain, uncomplicated diabetic issues and some falls. Category three patients are among those the NHS is encouraging to call first, rather than going straight to accident and emergency, as part of the flagship “111 first” drive designed to produce pressure on emergency care. Normally, the pathway from a 111 call being made to a patient being admitted to a bed would take nine hours with a faster response at all stages, the slides suggest. But the pressure across the NHS from covid cases is leading to much longer waits. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 8 January 2021
  24. News Article
    A hospital in the South East today declared a level of critical care alert meaning that it may be forced into ‘refusal or withdrawal of critical care due to resource limitation’ because it has been ‘overwhelmed’ — but later claimed it was an ”administrative error”. Data from an internal NHS dashboard for critical care, seen by HSJ, showed today Darent Valley Hospital, near Dartford in Kent, declared it was at “CRITCON level four”. CRITCON level four declarations are extremely rare. In guidance they are known as “Triage - emergency” and defined as: “Resources overwhelmed. Possibility of triage by resource (non-clinical refusal or withdrawal of critical care due to resource limitation).” The definition continues: “This must only be implemented on national directive from [NHS England] and in accordance with national guidance.” Dartford and Gravesham Trust, which runs the hospital, replied to HSJ more than five hours after it was contacted, and after publication of the story, to say: “This was a purely administrative error which was quickly rectified.” The level has not however been changed so far on the live dashboard, HSJ has confirmed. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 7 January 2021
  25. News Article
    "There can be no debate: this is now much, much worse than the first wave", says a NHS consultant. "Truly, I never imagined it would be this bad. Once again Covid has spread out along the hospital, the disease greedily taking over ward after ward. Surgical, paediatric, obstetric, orthopaedic; this virus does not discriminate between specialities. Outbreaks bloom even in our “clean” areas and the disease is even more ferociously infectious. Although our local tests do not differentiate strains, I presume this is the new variant. The patients are younger this time around too, and there are so many of them. They are sick. We are full." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 7 January 2020
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