NHS hospitals draft in SECRETARIES to help on wards and bosses plan to use Army helicopters to airlift Covid patients to mainland from Isle of Wight as officials warn crisis won t peak until FEBRUARY - but Matt Hancock says there is NO oxygen shortage
Hospitals in the capital are in need of immediate additional staff , NHS boss said
Secretaries, students and care workers could be drafted in to help on wards
They will be used to do paperwork, carry equipment and feed patients
High sickness and self-isolation rates and busy hospitals are pressuring NHS
People with advanced cancer have had their urgent surgery cancelled at a leading London hospital trust that is treating the largest number of Covid patients in the NHS. Patients who were due to undergo an operation to treat their disease at Barts Health NHS trust have been told the pressures the resurgent Covid-19 is putting hospitals under was to blame. The procedures involved are known in the NHS as “red flag” cancer cases and are classed by.
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Critically ill patients are being “evacuated” from the south of England to hospitals hundreds of miles away as NHS bosses in London revealed data showing the capital is set to run out of critical care beds within a week.
There were 50,000 positive cases reported across the UK for the second day running on Wednesday, with figures showing London – now the centre of the crisis – with 5,524 patients in hospital, more than its first-wave peak in April.
In response to the worsening crisis in London,
The Independent has learnt NHS England will announce plans on Thursday to reopen the Nightingale Hospital, at the east London Excel conference centre, on 4 January – initially with around 60 beds for patients who are almost ready to leave hospital.
Hospitals have been told to free up every possible bed for growing numbers of Covid patients as it emerged that Boxing Day was one of the London Ambulance Service’s busiest ever days.
NHS England has warned that the entire health service will have to stay on its highest state of alert until at least the end of March due to an ongoing influx of patients.
In a letter to local NHS bosses on Wednesday, the service’s chief operating officer Amanda Pritchard urged hospitals to mobilise their ‘surge capacity’ as they face soaring infections, staff sickness and longer patient stays.