(Picture: PA Wire)
London’s hospitals have been plunged into a “dangerous situation” as the Omicron wave has sent staff sickness levels soaring to around ten per cent, a top doctor has warned.
Dr Katherine Henderson, a consultant at a central London hospital but speaking as President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said so many doctors and nurses are having to be off that it was already having an impact on patient safety.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are seeing increasingly that our staff are testing positive and that means that they have to go off.
“Usually, staff sickness would last a couple of days but of course, if you test Covid positive, you are off for ten days.
“Probably in London, this has hit hardest first because that is where there is Omicron in high circulation.
“We are looking at probably about ten per cent of staff, that’s doctors and nurses, who are having to be off and they are having to be off for a long time.”
Some staff were also having to be off due to having come into contact with individuals with Covid, often in their household.
Dr Henderson described the level of contact still going on in society as “worrying” given the pressure on hospitals and size of the Omicron surge.
“People need to understand that this is a dangerous situation,” she added.
“The acute problem is actually to do with staffing, with workforce.
“Because there is so much in circulation, even if we are not seeing a big rise in hospitalisations yet, we are already seeing the effect on not having the staff to run shifts properly and safely.
“So we are worried about patient harm coming about because we just don’t have the staff to keep the eye on the person on the trolley who is maybe a bit agitated.”
Pressed if the situation was making people who have been admitted less safe than they should be, she added: “Yes, because we have got less pairs of eyes and less pairs of hands to keep an eye on patients and do the treatments we need.
“We are already having to move people around a great deal to make sure that we have got the senior cover we need.”
The number of Covid patients in London’s hospitals has jumped by around 30 per cent since the end of November to 1,372, as of Wednesday, with 195 so ill that they are on ventilators.
Dr Henderson stressed the need to follow Covid rules to limit the spread of Omicron and its impact on hospitals and suggested that isolation guidance for “contacts” could possibly be fine-tuned to allow more medics to return to work, provided it was done safely.
