How the NHS has coped with the second wave

Across Europe, hospitals have been filling up again with the second wave of coronavirus. France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands have all been hit, as has the Midwest of the United States. In England we’ve gone from fewer than 500 Covid-positive patients in hospital at the start of September to nearly 15,000 now. Each morning, we anxiously scrutinise the overnight figures. Thankfully, in the past week Covid inpatient numbers have begun to plateau — although they’ve still been rising in parts of the Midlands, London and Kent. So it’s an uneven picture. But unlike in March, community testing gives hospitals advance warning, so we’re able to adjust the provision of local health services almost in real time. This minimises the knock-on effect on other services. So NHS hospitals are now caring for 20,000 more non-Covid emergency inpatients each day than when they last had 15,000 Covid patients. Compared with spring they’re also performing three times more routine operations, and cancer treatments and GP appointments are mostly back to usual levels. All this is far better for patients, but it certainly does put brilliant NHS staff under even greater strain. Throughout the pandemic, the public have shown amazing support for their skill and dedication. Rather than say ‘Protect the NHS’, health service staff prefer to say: ‘Help us help you.’ Keeping coronavirus under control means we avoid displacing other treatments which our nurses, doctor and therapists desperately want to sustain. That’s why the run-up to Christmas is important: we need to see Covid infections and inpatient numbers drop decisively before we face more winter pressures, and the risk of a third wave.