in the capital, with another 1800 around the rest of the uk. our health correspondent katharine da costa reports. like many hospitals, kingston in south west london has been tackling a rise in covid admissions over christmas and a busy a&e. that has been compounded by growing staff absences. 4% of staff here are off work due to covid, and that is having a big impact on morale. checking in is important. we learned that in the first wave in the first five minutes, you check that everyone is ok and it goes a long way. the emotional support is key to allow people to be their best selves when they come to work. more than one in ten beds in england are occupied by patients who are fit enough to be discharged but need support from social care. 95 year old jean brownlee had a fall on christmas day. she is still waiting for a care package to go home. it s terribly frustrating. i mean, i could be at home now.
the last winter before the pandemic hit. as you can see, in the most recent week 23% of patients who were brought to a&e in an ambulance faced a wait of over 30 minutes outside a&e, two years ago the same week it was 18%. that is because covid brings with it some very unique challenges. as reported, staff absences are rising, we are seeing double the normal number of absences we would expect to see. secondly, the share numbers coming into hospital. you do expect at this time of year about 1000 admissions a day for all type of respiratory infections, but we are seeing double that for covid alone. some of those normal winter pressures are much lower, flu rates are much lower, we have fewer than 50 patients in hospital with the loo at the moment in england. what matters now is when
review means that we will be staying at alert level the ave you changes to introduce this week. alert level number two. every past days we have made some changes to the testing regime and the self isolation rules. because cases of coronavirus are so high in the community at the moment, we no longer need routinely to take a follow up pcr test after a positive lateral flow test result. 0ur wales correspondent hywel griffith is in cardiff. no changes to the coronavirus restrictions, any surprise? lilo. no changes to the coronavirus restrictions, any surprise? no, but erhas restrictions, any surprise? no, but perhaps what restrictions, any surprise? no, but perhaps what many restrictions, any surprise? no, but perhaps what many people - restrictions, any surprise? no, but perhaps what many people were i perhaps what many people were expecting was a suggestion that there be no changes for at least two weeks while many thought that we might be approaching the peak of the 0micron wave
i admit i can t see to do what i used to do, but i would be in my own environment. life would be much more pleasant. hospitals are reaching capacity whilst seeing a sharp rise in staff shortages. i6 trusts are still in critical incident mode. the latest nhs data shows more than 35,000 staff at acute trusts were off each day on average, due to covid, after the 2nd of january. up to. that is 4% of the workforce and up 41% on the previous week. but there are regional differences. the north east and yorkshire was hardest hit. there were more than 7,000 covid absences, which is 5% of staff and up by 79% on the previous week. in london, there were over 5,000 covid absences, or 3% of staff. that is down by 4% on the week before. these figures are really stark. outside of health care, staffing shortages are closing shops and cancelling trains.
two former prime ministers back calls for a so called hillsborough law to ensure fairer treatment for bereaved families. and, whatever happened to roly, zammo and gripper? grange hill, a tv staple for 30 years, is being turned into a film. good afternoon. staff absences caused by covid are making hospital care unsafe that s the warning from the main nursing union, the rcn. absences are up more than 40% in a week in england, and about one in eight hospitals are in a critical incident, which means they re struggling to provide core services. the armed forces have been called in to help 200 personnel have been deployed