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London hospitals could soon be overwhelmed by Covid-19 and run out of nearly 5,500 beds they need to cope with the explosion in cases, NHS leaders have revealed.
The chief physician for the capital’s health service shared the troubling analysis with senior physicians in the city’s NHS hospital trusts in a Zoom call Wednesday afternoon.
In his briefing, Dr. Vin Diwakar said that the large number of people who become seriously ill with Covid could see the capital’s hospitals face a shortfall of between 1,932 and 5,422 beds by January 19.
Hospitals will face a serious lack of beds by then, even if London’s Nightingale hospital reopens, they will manage to increase their supply of beds and measures to limit demand, such as the latest shutdown that began this week, the third that England faces, will result. effective.
Their report, which was obtained and reported by the Health Service Journal, raises the specter that London’s NHS will not be able to accommodate thousands of patients in need of life and death care in less than fifteen days.
Recently, major problems have arisen in London hospitals. Video footage emerged of a large number of ambulances queuing outside Queen’s Hospital in Romford, northeast London. The Royal London Hospital told staff it was under such pressure from Covid that it was entering “disaster medicine” mode and could not guarantee the usual quality of care.
And last week, the head of the University College hospital said that it was rapidly becoming a Covid-only hospital and that it was responding to having more Covid patients now than at the peak of the first wave in April by converting operating rooms, recovery areas and stroke rooms in makeshift critical care. units.
Diwakar’s paper models how the demand for acute and general hospital beds and critical care beds may grow between now and January 19, given the relentless growth of the Covid disease.
In the “best” scenario, London would have 417 very few intensive care beds by then. That’s based on the demand for such beds being 4% a day in the meantime. However, he acknowledges that the demand on Tuesday, January 5, was higher, 4.8%.
In the “medium” growth scenario, which is based on a daily increase in demand of 5%, London would have a deficit of 665 beds of this type. And in the “worst” case scenario involving a 6% increase, hospitals would have 945 very few intensive care beds, which are also known as intensive care beds.
The potential shortage is even more dramatic in relation to general and acute beds. They are beds that are often full of people who are in very bad shape, some of whom are waiting or recovering after surgery. However, around 40% of them are now filled with Covid patients.
In the “best” case described, hospitals would have fewer than 1,515 beds. That rises to 2,964 in the “average” scenario. And it reaches a large deficit of 4,477 beds in the “worst” case.
London has 15,600 general and acute beds, Diwakar said. However, by January 19 he could be facing a total of between 17,115, 18,504 or 20,077 patients who need one, according to his projections.
Hospitals will face a severe shortage of beds of this type, even considering that there are 1,080 “downsized” beds for patients near discharge, some of which could be in the Nightingale at the ExCel conference center in the Docklands. From the capital; specialized hospitals that take in another 120 patients; and private hospitals with capacity for 50 more patients.
In a statement to HSJ, Dr Diwakar said: “Hospitals in London are under significant pressure due to high rates of Covid-19 infection, so they have opened hundreds of intensive care beds and plan to open more, including the opening of the London Nightingale. “
HSJ reports that the briefing was intended to prompt trusted medical directors to think about steps they could take to minimize the looming gap between demand for care and availability of beds.
He said: “The options that have been launched include a very significant reduction in the number of non-Covid patients by canceling more elective jobs and / or sending those patients to other regions or private providers, in the capital or elsewhere.”
However, he noted, doing any of those things can prove difficult due to the already limited number of beds available in other parts of England and the large increase in Covid patients being seen in many parts of the country due to the spread of the newer variant. highly transmissible of coronavirus.
