HOSPITALS now have more Covid patients than during April’s first-wave peak as a health boss warned doctors and nurses are “back in the eye of the storm.”
NHS workers are “back in the eye of the storm” amid rising cases of coronavirus in the UK as the “toughest year” draws to close, the chief executive of NHS England Simon Stevens said.
A further 699 people in the North-East reported a positive Covid test as of Monday, December 28, bringing the total number of cases in the region to 119,184.
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The North-East has a current case rate of 219.4 per 100,000 people.
NHS England figures show there were 20,426 patients in NHS hospitals in England as of 8am on Monday, compared to the 18,974 patients recorded on April 12.
The number of further lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus recorded in a single day in the UK also hit a new high of 41,385 as of 9am Monday, rising above 40,000 for the first time, according to Government figures.
Cases figures do not include information from Scotland and Northern Ireland, which did not report data between December 24 and 28, meaning the true number is even higher.
Mr Stevens paid tribute to nurses, doctors, therapists and countless other NHS workers, as well as cleaners and non-medical staff such as carers, volunteers and care home workers, in a New Year message recorded at a vaccination centre.
It comes as hospitals face a rise in pressure amid the spread of a new strain of coronavirus, with the number of coronavirus patients receiving treatment heading towards the April peak.
Sir Simon said Covid-19 meant 2020 had “probably been the toughest year most of us can remember”.
Rainbow drawings in the window of DLD College, London (Aaron Chown/PA)
“That is certainly true across the health service where we have been responding to the worst pandemic in a century,” he said.
“Many of us have lost family, friends, colleagues and – at a time of year when we would normally be celebrating – a lot of people are understandably feeling anxious, frustrated and tired.
“And now again we are back in the eye of the storm with a second wave of coronavirus sweeping Europe and, indeed, this country.”
But the pandemic had shown that “sometimes the worst of circumstances bring out the best in people”, he added.
“We have certainly seen that in my colleagues across the health service – the fantastic intensive care nurses and doctors, the paramedics, the therapists, the porters, the cleaners, the entire team across the national health service who have so brilliantly looked after 200,000 severely ill coronavirus patients and many others with all the other conditions the health service is here to care for,” he said.
Nurses caring for a patient in an intensive care ward (Steve Parsons/PA)
“As they have done so, that has been boosted by the superb work of neighbours and volunteers and carers and care home staff – and quietly, at the same time, the advances we continue to see in medical science.”
Sir Simon suggested that scientific breakthroughs which saw the NHS become the first health service in the world to deliver a coronavirus vaccine outside of a trial may offer some hope for the future.
Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old British grandmother, became the first patient in the world to receive the Covid-19 vaccine when she was given the jab at University Hospital, Coventry, on December 8.
Sir Simon said: “We think that by late spring with vaccine supplies continuing to come on stream we will have been able to offer all vulnerable people across this country Covid vaccination.
“That perhaps provides the biggest chink of hope for the year ahead.
Margaret Keenan, 90, as she became the first person in the United Kingdom to receive the Pfizer/BioNtech covid-19 vaccine (Jacob King/PA)
“But that will only be possible thanks once again to the dedication and the commitment of countless NHS staff – our brilliant GPs, pharmacists, nurses and many many others.
“Therefore now is the right time, I believe, on behalf of the whole country to record our enormous debt of gratitude and our huge thanks.”
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