More than a dozen NHS hospitals will run out of intensive care capacity next week as a surge in coronavirus-infected patients need treatment, it has emerged.
A survey of hospital chief executives, by the Health Service Journal, found 13 hospital bosses believed their hospitals would have no spare critical care beds by next week.
Eight hospitals said they would run out of capacity this week and a further five by next week.
One acute trust in the South East said: “Modelling suggests we won’t have enough capacity of any sort, including [intensive care]. Staffing during the peak will suffer through illness and we won’t have enough staff to meet the additional capacity even if we didn’t have sickness.”
Today the government announced plans to create a brand new NHS hospital at London’s ExCel conference centre with 4,000 beds. Elsewhere, hospitals across London, which is at the epicentre of the UK outbreak, have been told to dramatically increase intensive care beds.
In the snap survey of hospital chief executives, which received 34 responses out of more than 200 hospital trusts, the bosses raises the lack of testing for NHS staff, workforce shortages and a lack of personal protective equipment to prevent staff being infected.
One chief executive described the difficult choices being made telling the survey: “We are preserving ventilation capacity by ensuring that only those who may survive are considered”.
The majority of respondents praised the NHS response to the crisis.
Despite reassurances from ministers that there was enough equipment for staff, 24 chief executives said they did not have enough masks while 21 said they lacked visors.
One Midlands hospital boss said they had faced “a near revolt amongst my clinical staff [because of PPE shortages and also] about the national guidance on use of surgical masks for non-aerosol generating work”.
They added: “They see hazmat suits and FFP3 [masks] being deployed in all scenarios in western Europe and want to know why we aren’t doing the same. Staff testing … would provide a huge psychological boost and help us get staff back to work.”
An NHS England spokesman said: “NHS staff at all levels are working around the clock to get services ready, including rapidly ramping up treatment capacity within hospitals, and we are supporting them nationally including striking a landmark deal with private care providers, calling up student and recently-retired clinicians to bolster the front line, and supporting the Department of Health as they procure for us the PHE-recommended protective equipment.”
