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ICU Occupancy in English Hospitals No Higher Than Last December This is stock photo, not a photo of an empty ICU ward in an English hospital The media is full of alarming reports of NHS hospitals being on the brink of armageddon, such is the surge in coronavirus patients. “As we head into the new year we are seeing a real rise in the pressure on NHS services, particularly across London and the south-east,” Saffron Cordery, the Deputy Chief Executive of NHS Providers told the Guardian. A letter from NHS chiefs sent to the chief executives of all NHS trust and foundation trusts on December 23rd contained this alarming paragraph: With COVID-19 inpatient numbers rising in almost all parts of the country, and the new risk presented by the variant strain of the virus, you should continue to plan on the basis that we will remain in a level 4 incident for at least the rest of this financial year and NHS trusts should continue to safely mobilise all of their available surge capacity over the coming weeks. This should include maximising use of the independent sector, providing mutual aid, making use of specialist hospitals and hubs to protect urgent cancer and elective activity and planning for use of funded additional facilities such as the Nightingale hospitals, Seacole services and ...
