Nearly 90 per cent of hospital beds in England are full as hospitals face the challenge of managing winter pressures and treating rising numbers of coronavirus patients.
The total number of Covid-19 patients in hospital in England stood at 15,465 on December 16, up from 13,467 a week earlier. During the first wave of the virus, this number peaked at 18,974 on April 12.
According to the latest data from NHS England, the percentage of occupied NHS hospital beds in England has nearly reached 89 per cent for the week ending December 13.
Hospitals in the south and east of the country are facing more bed pressures, with the South East reporting a 90.2 per cent bed occupancy and the east of England reporting a 90. 5 per cent bed occupancy in the seven days leading up to December 13, reports BBC News.
Some 2,543 Covid-19 patients were recorded in London on December 16, up from 1,787 a week ago. The first wave peak in London was 5,201 patients on April 9.
The capital has recorded some of the highest bed occupancy numbers.
The average percentage of occupied beds in the week ending December 13, was at 95.4 per cent in Royal Free London NHS Trust hospitals. It was 95.8 per cent in Lewisham and Greenwich hospitals and 96.8 per cent at King’s College hospitals.
The President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said on Friday that we must do “whatever it takes” to get coronavirus cases under control.
Asked if a lockdown needs to be announced for England and Scotland following similar announcements in Wales and Northern Ireland, Dr Katherine Henderson said: “I don’t really care what the terminology is, all I know is that we need to do something to get ourselves suppressing the community transmission of the virus.
“It seems to me we need to do whatever it takes to get the situation firmly under control so that we can vaccinate people and then move forward.”
She said the difference between the current situation and the one in March is that hospitals are still trying to carry on with all their non-Covid work while dealing with a rise in patients with the virus.
She said: “We’ve got a real perfect storm going at the moment of lack of beds, a big wave of Covid patients and a desperate attempt to try and carry on doing (non-Covid) work.”
She urged the public to be “incredibly careful” over the festive period, adding: “Just don’t make anything more risky than it needs to be.”
