Rising cases of flue and the vomiting bug norovirus are keeping the National Health Service (NHS) of England busier than usual this winter. The medical director of NHS, Prof Sir Stephen Powis, said that around 95 per cent of beds in the hospitals are already occupied and it’s just the start of December. These kind of rates only were seen in the depths of winter.
Sir Stephen, who is also the most senior doctor, said, “The NHS is busier than it has ever been before heading into winter, with flu and norovirus numbers in hospitals rising sharply – and we are still only at the start of December, so we expect pressure to increase and there is a long winter ahead of us”
“For a while, there have been warnings of a ‘tripledemic’ of Covid, flu and RSV this winter, but with rising cases of norovirus, this could fast become a ‘quad-demic’,” she further added.
This comes after the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said hitting the 18-week target for non-urgent hospital care is one of his six long-term priorities for government.
Starmer’s statement has made senior doctors in the UK accuse the government of avoiding the immediate “crisis” facing the emergency system.
Ambulances in the country are supposed to hand over patients to hospital staff within 15 minutes, but last week 67 per cent of arrivals took 44 minutes on average, according to BBC.
Dr Tim Cooksley, of the Society for Acute Medicine, told BBC that patients in medical emergencies were facing “appalling conditions and prolonged waits”.
“It’s an ongoing crisis which remains far from being resolved effectively. The extra cases of winter viruses, such as Covid, flu and RSV, mean many hospitals will fall into critical incidents given the relentless challenges we have faced all year round,” he told BBC.
Cooksley further added, “Despite the positive rhetoric around tackling waiting lists, our concern is that the government continues to avoid acknowledging overtly that there will be no elective recovery without emergency care recovery. The two are dependent and need a coherent, coordinated approach”.
(With inputs from agencies)