Category Archives: NHS

Scientists fear falling trust in Boris Johnson could harm bid to curb Omicron surge

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Researchers say new rules may be needed to cut deaths, but there are concerns that ‘fed-up’ people will ignore government

Ministers announced a huge expansion of the booster vaccine campaign on Saturday night, amid warnings that further restrictions will be needed imminently to prevent tens of thousands of deaths.

With new Covid measures being discussed in Whitehall and claims of people being turned away from booster walk-in centres, third jabs will be opened up to those in their 30s from Monday in England. Those who had their second jab three months ago or more will be eligible.

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Confusion over booster eligibility in England as people in 30s book Covid jabs

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Apparent glitch allows younger people to book vaccinations before they were expected to qualify

There was confusion on Saturday about which age groups in England are now eligible to book a booster jab with the NHS, after an apparent glitch allowed younger people to book before they were expected to qualify.

People aged 30 and over in England were expected to be able to book a Covid-19 booster from Monday as long as it has been three months since their second vaccine dose, but many 30-somethings reported on social media on Saturday that they had been able to book their appointments already.

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Javid advised to take ‘stringent’ Covid measures within a week, leak reveals

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Exclusive: Health officials say urgent action needed to avoid mass hospitalisations and overwhelming the NHS

Britain’s top public health officials have advised ministers that “stringent national measures” need to be imposed by 18 December to avoid Covid hospitalisations surpassing last winter’s peak, according to documents leaked to the Guardian.

Sajid Javid, the health secretary, received a presentation from the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) on Tuesday warning that even if the new Omicron variant leads to less serious disease than Delta, it risks overwhelming the NHS with 5,000 people admitted to hospital a day.

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Act now against Omicron to stop new Covid wave, UK ministers warned

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Government privately being urged by advisers to tell people to work from home as UK cases of variant hit 134

UK ministers have been warned they cannot wait for new research on the Omicron variant and must act now to prevent a potentially “very significant wave of infections” that risks overwhelming the NHS.

A 75 further cases of the variant have been identified in England, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said on Friday night, bringing the total number of UK confirmed cases to 134. The head of the agency, Dr Jenny Harries, said: “We have started to see cases where there are no links to travel, suggesting that we have a small amount of community transmission.”

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Covid: UK aims for 500,000 jabs a day in bid to outpace Omicron variant

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Ministers to ramp up vaccinations to 3.5m a week as minimum gap for boosters is halved to three months

Ministers are targeting a return to half a million UK Covid jabs a day as the waiting time for boosters was cut to three months in a bid to outpace the Omicron variant that scientists believe is already spreading in the community.

Confirmed Omicron cases rose to 11 in England and Scotland on Monday, with scientific advisers braced for hundreds more to be detected in the next week or so.

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ICU is full of the unvaccinated – my patience with them is wearing thin | Anonymous

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Most of the resources we are devoting to Covid in hospital are being spent on people who have not had their jab

In hospital, Covid-19 has largely become a disease of the unvaccinated. The man in his 20s who had always watched what he ate, worked out in the gym, was too healthy to ever catch Covid badly. The 48-year-old who never got round to making the appointment.

The person in their 50s whose friend had side-effects. The woman who wanted to wait for more evidence. The young pregnant lady worried about the effect on her baby.

The writer is an NHS respiratory consultant who works across a number of hospitals

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Mother of victim of morgue rapist calls for hospital boss to resign

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Nevres Kemal demands Miles Scott quits as chief executive of Maidstone and Tunbridge NHS trust

The mother of one of the victims of the morgue rapist, David Fuller, is campaigning for the boss of the hospital where Fuller serially abused corpses undetected for 12 years to resign.

The body of Azra Kemal was raped three times in July 2020 in the morgue of Tunbridge Wells hospital by Fuller, a hospital electrician, who is known to have violated at least 100 corpses between 2008 and 2010.

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A moment that changed me: ‘After 102 days in intensive care, I finally came home’

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A year after I left hospital, I’m still getting over the Covid that almost killed me. But I’m not going to waste another minute of my life

I was in a wheelchair when they brought me home at the end of September 2020. I had been in intensive care for 102 days. For the first two months my wife, Plum, had not been allowed to visit, instead receiving daily reports on my condition – recurrent delirium, two heart attacks, stents, kidney dialysis, pneumonia, memory loss and tracheotomy – all brought on by Covid.

Three times she was told I wouldn’t be resuscitated if I suffered any further deterioration and she had come to dread the ringing of the phone. But only when I got home did I fully realise how much she and the families of other Covid patients had suffered.

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Childhood obesity in England soars during pandemic

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Experts alarmed as NHS data shows one in four children in England aged 10 and 11 are obese

Thousands of children are facing “serious” and even “devastating” consequences as a result of weight gain during the pandemic, experts warn, as “alarming” figures reveal one in four 10- and 11-year-olds in England are obese.

Health leaders are calling for a “relentless drive” to boost child health as official NHS data lays bare for the first time how child obesity levels have soared during lockdowns.

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Covid vaccine to be compulsory for all NHS England staff by April

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Sajid Javid set to confirm to MPs decision to press ahead despite oppositions of unions and some doctors’ organisations

All 1.4 million NHS staff in England will have to be vaccinated against Covid by next spring if they want to keep their jobs, Sajid Javid will confirm to MPs on Tuesday.

The health secretary has decided to press ahead with making jabs compulsory despite health unions and some doctors’ organisations voicing strong opposition.

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UK Covid infections are at record levels, but cases may have peaked

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1.28 million have coronavirus, but separate figures suggest number of daily infections has declined 14%

Britain was last week presented with two differing pictures of Covid-19’s spread across the country. Together they suggest infections have reached record levels since the pandemic began but have also raised hopes that the current high wave of cases across the UK may have peaked.

The first study is based on a random survey of households that showed about 1.28 million people in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were infected with Covid-19 for the week ending 22 October, the highest number of infections to be recorded since the pandemic began in the UK. Carried out by the Office for National Statistics, this weekly survey is rated as the most reliable measure of British infection levels.

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Looking for the peak: the cautious optimism over stalling UK Covid cases

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Cases may level off soon, but bets are off until after half-term – and NHS faces winter crisis regardless

The Covid pandemic has been a story of twists and turns, with the situation often developing quickly.

For much of October, confirmed cases in the UK have risen daily – largely driven by increases in England and Wales.

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Covid live: UK records 207 deaths and 43,941 new cases; Novavax files for UK approval

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UK deaths are up compared to last Wednesday; Novavax asking UK watchdog to approve its Covid jab

Following up on those comments, Dame Meg Hillier has been on the BBC this morning, saying that the Conservative government’s test and trace programme treated taxpayers as if they were an ATM. PA Media quote her saying:

There was a lot of gung-ho confidence from No 10 that we would have a ‘moonshot’ towards mass testing. Those messages kept getting more optimistic. Baroness Harding was also very optimistic about what they achieved.

But in the end it massively over-promised for what it delivered and it was eye-watering sums of money.

The national Test & Trace programme was allocated eye watering sums of taxpayers’ money in the midst of a global health and economic crisis. It set out bold ambitions but has failed to achieve them despite the vast sums thrown at it. Only 14% of 691m lateral flow tests sent out had results reported, and who knows how many took the necessary action based on the results they got, or how many were never used. The continued reliance on the over-priced consultants who “delivered” this state of affairs will by itself cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds. For this huge amount of money we need to see a legacy system ready to deliver when needed but it’s just not clear what there will be to show in the long term. This legacy has to be a focus for government if we are to see any value for the money spent.

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Why pregnant women need clearer messaging on Covid vaccine safety

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Analysis: early uncertainty around vaccination advice for expectant mothers has left them confused and hesitant

In the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, there was uncertainty around almost everything, from who was more adversely affected by Covid-19 to who should get vaccinated first – or at all.

But as awareness about the illness and vaccine safety has grown, one group in particular remains confused and torn about the risk of immunisation: expectant mothers.

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Coronavirus live: European Medical Agency approves Moderna booster; UK records 36,567 new cases

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The EU’s medical body has approved booster doses of Moderna’s Covid vaccine for all adults; UK also reports 38 further Covid-related deaths

Just back on those school anti-vaccine protests for a moment, my colleague Sarah Marsh has this report: Keir Starmer calls for schools to be protected from anti-vaccine protests

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) revealed this month that most of the schools surveyed by the union (79%) had been targeted by anti-vaxxers. This had mainly been through emails threatening legal action, but the ASCL said in some cases staff had been threatened with physical harm and some protesters have gained access to school sites.

Starmer said: “It is sickening that anti-vax protesters are spreading dangerous misinformation to children in protests outside of schools. The uptake of vaccines among children is far too low and the government’s rollout is painfully slow. Everything must be done to get those eligible jabbed as quickly as possible in this public health emergency.

“Labour believes the law around public spaces protection orders (PSPOs) urgently needs to be updated so that local authorities can rapidly create exclusion zones for anti-vax protests outside of schools.”

PSPOs can be used to disperse people from a public area and have previously been used to move on protesters outside abortion clinics or to allow police to confiscate alcohol in certain spaces.

But gaining permission to impose one takes significant consultation, and Labour is calling for an expedited process in cases of preventing harassment and intimidation of children outside schools if agreed to by the school, the leader of the local council, and the local police chief constable.

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UK government paves way to bring in tough ‘plan B’ Covid rules

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Councils consulted over support for measures such as vaccine passports amid warnings by senior doctors that NHS faces winter illness ‘triple whammy’

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New evidence has emerged that the government is paving the way to implement “plan B” measures in England to combat the spread of Covid-19, amid warnings from health chiefs that a “vortex of pressures” is encircling the NHS.

In the clearest sign to date that Whitehall is actively considering additional measures, the Observer has learnt that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) contacted local authorities on Friday to canvass their level of support for the “immediate rollout of the winter plan – plan B”.

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Nurses and shop staff in UK face tide of abuse since end of lockdowns

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Customer-facing workers in all sectors report greater hostility, research shows

People in public-facing jobs are facing rising hostility and verbal abuse since the end of the Covid lockdowns, according to organisations which represent them. Half of all shop, transport, restaurant and hotel workers and others dealing regularly with the public have experienced abuse in the past six months, figures from the Institute for Customer Service (ICS) show. This is a 6% rise over May’s 44%. Of those who had been abused, 27% had been physically attacked, it found.

The research comes as trades unions and industry bodies warn of growing public hostility towards workers since Covid’s second wave.

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GPs in England threaten industrial action over in-person appointments

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Family doctors reject plan to force them to see any patient who wants face-to-face appointment

GPs in England are threatening to take industrial action in protest at the government’s bid to force them to see any patient who wants a face-to-face appointment.

The British Medical Association’s GPs committee voted unanimously to reject the plan by the health secretary, Sajid Javid, that included “naming and shaming” surgeries that see too few patients in person.

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MPs should set example with masks in battle against Covid, says Javid

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Health secretary rejects calls for ‘plan B’ measures despite predicting infections could hit 100,000 a day

Politicians have a responsibility to set an example in the battle against Covid, including wearing masks in crowded spaces, Sajid Javid has suggested as he predicted new infections could hit a record 100,000 a day.

With the government under mounting pressure to impose measures to control the virus, Javid warned “this pandemic is not over” and insisted he would do “what it takes” to protect the health service. But he said: “We don’t believe that the pressures currently faced by the NHS are unsustainable.”

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Coronavirus cases could hit 100,000 a day this winter, says Javid – video

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Ministers will do 'what it takes' to ensure the NHS is not overwhelmed this winter, Sajid Javid has promised, as he said the number of new Covid infections across the UK could hit a record 100,000 a day. The health secretary said the government would not heed the NHS Confederation's call to implement 'plan B' measures such as mandatory mask wearing 'at this time', but that ministers would be 'staying vigilant, preparing for all eventualities'

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