The number of hospital admissions for Covid-19, along with the number of in-patient diagnoses for the virus, have shot up in Greater Manchester, as ‘non-urgent surgeries and admissions’ are suspended in the region.
The weekly admissions to hospital for coronavirus have ‘more than doubled’ in two weeks, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham told a press briefing today (January 5).
Those being diagnosed with the virus while in hospital have ‘doubled within the week’, he added.
READ MORE: Greater Manchester hospital beds outside intensive care are now 96 pc full amid Omicron crisis
The latest update comes the day after health bosses announced that 17 Greater Manchester hospitals have been forced to cancel non-urgent surgery and appointments due to the Omicron crisis.
Not only are the number of admissions increasing in the area, the levels of NHS staff off work because of Covid - either testing positive or having to isolate - has rapidly risen to 15 per cent, as of the latest figures shared this afternoon.
Making matters worse, more than 600 medically fit patients are stuck in hospital as around half of Greater Manchester’s care homes cannot take on new residents due to staffing shortages within social care, says the mayor.
Altogether, rising admissions and a lack of discharges have led to huge bed occupancy pressure on Greater Manchester’s hospitals.
Just shy of 90 per cent of all beds in the region are full, according to the mayor.
Some 96 per cent of general beds, excluding intensive care, are occupied, the Manchester Evening News understands.
Typically, anything over 85 per cent is considered uncomfortable for hospitals.
Weekly admissions to hospitals for Covid-19 has risen from 130 as of December 20, to 392 as of January 3.
The weekly in-patient diagnoses - those who received a positive test for Covid-19 after being admitted - has risen from 196 as of December 20, to 778 as of January 3.
And the number of hospital beds, excluding intensive therapy and high dependency beds, with Covid-19 patients has risen from 349 on December 20, to 1,020 by January 3.
Nearly one in four patients, outside of ICU, have Covid, the M.E.N. understands.
More than one senior NHS source also said ‘incidental’ cases of Covid in hospitals, those discovered once patients had been admitted for something else, had become a particular issue as a result and had been driving ward closures.
In order to combat the shut downs, Greater Manchester leaders are believed to be reopening mothballed wards.
“It’s a considerably changed picture over the fortnight with regard to admissions, which have more than doubled over the fortnight,” Burnham told the press conference.
“Patients diagnosed within the hospital setting have more than doubled within the week.”
Covid cases across Greater Manchester continue to skyrocket, with the region overall seeing a rate of more than 2,000 cases per 100,000 people by December 31, up from just over 450 per 100,000 as of December 10.
“We’re seeing increases across all 10 Greater Manchester boroughs,” said the mayor.
“These are case numbers at a level that we just haven’t seen thus far in the pandemic. These numbers are way above anything we’ve seen before.”
Among those affected are NHS workers, with around 15 per cent of staff absent in the NHS, and social care workers, with staffing so low in the sector - even prior to the Omicron wave - that Greater Manchester is finding ‘service continuity’ difficult.
The figure marks a sharp rise, though staff absence was already at 10 per cent within the health service before Christmas.
More than 650 people in Greater Manchester hospital beds are medically fit for discharge, explained the mayor, but ‘around half of our care homes are unable to accept new residents’.
“The position in the NHS is going to be affected by supporting services,” he added.
“It’s a very challenging month ahead of us. We’re talking about staff who haven’t had much of a Christmas or New Year break.
“There’s lots of levels of fatigue in the system, not just on the frontline but in offices with managers supporting the frontline.
“We are of the view that we would not use the phrase ‘ride it out’ because that isn’t necessarily going to be possible. We need to be more cognisant of how challenging this might be.”
This, however, does not mean the NHS in Greater Manchester isn’t able to cope - only that ‘ride it out’ is a ‘complacent’ phrase to use during what promises to be a ‘very difficult month’ for all public services.
Last night, hospitals in the region collectively decided to pause non-urgent surgery everywhere apart from at Rochdale Infirmary, a designated ‘green site’, and the specialist work at the Christie.
Everywhere else will limit care to Covid patients and emergency care and surgery, including cancer, cardiac, vascular and transplant operations. The majority of outpatient work will continue.
Hospitals in Lancashire had already sounded the alarm in recent days about the scale of the Covid pressure there, with hospitals in both Blackpool and Morecambe declaring critical incidents as a result.
“That is a temporary move that will be kept under regular review. The message to patients is that they should wait to be contacted, not necessarily call the GP or hospital themselves, and if people aren’t contacted then they should absolutely turn up for their appointment,” said Burnham.
“We hope the pressure will begin to subside as the month progresses.”
January is commonly a tough month for the NHS, Burnham adds, with elective surgeries having been cancelled at this time of year in the past.
There are hopes that changes to testing procedures, with asymptomatic people being able to use a positive lateral flow test no longer needing to take a PCR to confirm the result, may create ‘some flexibility for the frontline with regard to people being able to return and free up PCR lab capacity for staff, particularly NHS and social care staff, who need a test’.
In recent days, doctors, nurses and more have voiced their concerns about struggling to access PCR tests, and waiting days for their results, despite being classed as essential workers.
As NHS rules dictate, they are unable to go back to work without a negative PCR test.
This week, the availability of PCR tests evaporated across the country, following 'spikes in demand'.
This prompted one GP to share his concerns with the M.E.N. that hospitals, GP surgeries and care homes will go into 'lockdown' as there are 'not enough staff members to care for patients'.
As for the future of hospitals, it’s a case of watching and waiting carefully, according to the mayor.
There are mutual aid provisions in place in the NHS that are 'not needed at this particular moment in time', and there will be the ability to stand up extra beds.
This wouldn't be a Nightingale unit, but there is the ability to mobilise extra bed capacity, he says, while some ICU staff have been shifted to help the general bed pressures.
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