The Observer
News 09.01.22 9R
ecord numbers of
O micron-driven
infections are turning
into rapidly rising
numbers of Covid
patients in hospital.
Staff absences, which have now
reached 80,000 a day, are severely
hampering the response. All on top
of very high demand for non- Covid
care during the most pressured four
weeks in the NHS calendar.
There is good news. The
vaccines are working. The surge of
seriously ill older people the NHS
saw last January, and feared so
much this time, has not yet mate-
rialised. London, the original UK
epicentre of Omicron , looks like it is
now stabilising.
But after a decade of the deepest
fi nancial squeeze in NHS history,
the health and care frontline is
going to be stretched perilously thin
in places over the next three weeks,
as evidenced by the 25 trusts who
have needed to declare a critical
incident in the last week.
Trust leaders tell us that, due to
the dedication, professionalism and
fl exibility of NHS staff and manag-
ers, the line should just about hold.
As we have demonstrated over
the last 18 months, thanks to our
national structure, the NHS can
deliver in ways many other national
health systems can’t.
We can booster-vaccinate a higher
proportion of our vulnerable popu-
lation more quickly and administer
a higher number of new, life- saving,
antiviral drugs than any other
nation in Europe.
As we saw on 18 January 2021,
when the NHS coped with 40,
Covid patients in hospital on the
same day, trusts can rally around
to help neighbours when they hit
serious trouble.
We can create “insurance policy”
super-surge capacity across the
country at incredible pace, with the
fi rst eight hubs now in place.
We can create virtual wards,
using new technology to monitor
less seriously ill patients remotely,
only bringing them into hospital
when needed.
These are the advantages of a
single, taxpayer-funded, national
system. A system with a proper
national and regional infrastructure
to support local trusts to work
together to meet collective patient
need, free from the require-ment to maximise individual
organisational profi t.
But we must be open and honest
about the impact this degree of
pressure is having on patients and
staff. And we need to recognise the
pressure extends well beyond hos-
pitals. Ambulances, mental health
and community services, GPs and
social care face unprecedented chal-
lenges too.
Despite that extraordinary effort
from the NHS frontline, thousands
of patients are having to wait
longer than the NHS would want
for urgent care. For 999 calls to
be answered. For ambulances to
hand over patients to hospitals. For
patients to be seen promptly in acci-
dent and emergency departments
and discharged back home or to the
care sector.
And, despite trusts working
incredibly hard to avoid this, they
are now having to delay planned
care again, adding further to the
growing care backlog. There is a
clear, regrettable, impact on quality
of care and, in the most pressured
parts of the system, a worrying
increase in patient safety risk.
The impact on frontline staff is
also signifi cant given that we are
asking them, once again, to make
an extraordinary effort. While some
may live with the pressure, after two
years of being on a “war footing”,
others are now burning out.
Trust leaders are doing all they
can to support their staff as effec-
tively as possible, while managing
the personal impact on their own
lives. But there are some serious
frustrations that still need to be
addressed nationally, such as con-
sistent and timely access to lateral
fl ow and PCR tests when needed.
Covid-19 is, hopefully, a once-in-
a-generation challenge. But when
any system comes under pressure,
its weakest links are revealed.
It is now very clear that the NHS
and our social care system do not
have suffi cient capacity. That asking
staff to work harder and harder to
address that gap is simply not sus-
tainable. That we need a long-term,
fully funded, workforce plan to attract
and retain the extra 1 million health
and care staff the Health Foundation
estimates will be needed by 2031.
And that we need a national
transformation programme that
embeds modern technology, 21st
century medicine, integrated care
closer to home and much greater
emphasis on prevention at the heart
of our health and care system.
These are the longer-term issues
we will need to address once this
immediate challenge has been met.Chris Hopson is chief executive of
NHS ProvidersIt’s time to transform the
NHS – the pressures of
Covid have left no doubt
Chris
HopsonCOMMENTARY
ning on a reduced time-
table due to “higher
than normal” staff
sickness caused by
Omicron. At the bus
station, a driver said
absences were the worst
they had been throughout the
pandemic and they were cut-
ting more than 1,600 miles a day
of journeys.
“It’s stressful,” he said. First Essex
apologised to customers and said
it was doing everything it could to
minimise disruption and that teams
were “working extra hard to ensure as
many buses run as is possible”.
Meanwhile, at Broomfi eld hospital
in the city staff are understood to be
struggling with extra work and stress
as more and more of them fall ill.
“Broomfield staff have never
known a crisis like this. They’re abso-
lutely wrung out from almost two
years of near-constant emergency
footing,” said Sam Older, eastern
regional organiser at Unison, which
is calling for an above-infl ation pay
rise for NHS staff.
“With Omicron running riot, more
and more are falling ill. Those left are
contending with not only the fear
of the virus, but the extra work and
stress from the shortages.”
Mid and South Essex NHS foun-
dation trust, which oversees the hos-
pital, said Omicron was leading to
“higher levels of staff absence”. A
spokesperson added: “Our staff are
working tirelessly to minimise the
impact of this and we have robust
plans in place to ensure that patients
who urgently need our care continue
to receive it.”
Meanwhile, collections of food
waste bins were cancelled for three
days last week after 23 drivers – 40%
of the total – were off sick follow-
ing the Christmas break. Councillor
Stephen Robinson, the Liberal
Democrat leader of Chelmsford city
council, noted that it marked the fi rst
change to bin collections of the pan-
demic. “It was very much an emer-
gency decision, and this week we’re
now largely back on track,” he said.
He said managing services amid
soaring infection rates had been a
challenge and that leisure cen-
tres were having to move staff
around to cover absences.
But, he added: “By and
large Chelmsford city
council has coped very
well and services have
kept running through-
out the pandemic.”
Even the football team
has been taken down by
Covid. Chelmsford City ’s
match against Braintree
Town had to be postponed
last Sunday because so many
Chelmsford players had tested pos-
itive. And for yesterday’s match,
against Bath City, which they won
1-0, Chelmsford’s manager, Robbie
Simpson, who has also tested positive,
was preparing to coach them remotely
via a livestream from isolation.
“Within the space of just over a
week we’ve gone from having next
to no one to almost everybody, so
it’s been crazy,” said Simpson. As an
NHS worker, Simpson’s wife has had
to work from home after his positive
test, despite testing negative herself.
Preparing for matches when
many of the team had been quar-
antining had been tough. “Because
obviously you can’t really prepare
in advance because you never know
when someone’s going to get a posi-
tive lateral fl ow,” he said. One player
has converted his garage into a gym
so that he can keep training while
in isolation.
“It seems like everybody’s getting it
at the minute ... it seems to be affect-
ing everybody and every industry.”LEFT
Scott Jones
says takings in
his pub have
fallen 40% since
the arrival of
Omicron.
Sophia Evans/
the ObserverABOVE
Bins in the city
were not emptied
as usual last
week after 23
refuse truck
drivers reported
sick.LEFT
Chelmsford’s
football team,
seen here taking
on Billericay,
notched up a 1-
win against Bath
yesterday after a
week off due to
Covid absences.
Action Foto Sport