London health providers grapple with Omicron staff absences

The number of NHS staff off sick in London has risen sharply in recent days, threatening to delay treatment and demonstrating the risks to healthcare as the UK battles one of the world’s biggest outbreaks of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

Data released on Monday showed 220 Covid-positive patients were admitted to hospitals in the capital on Friday, the highest daily figure since February 10.

It is not known what portion were admitted for treatment with severe Covid-19, and what portion were diagnosed with the disease only after admission for another reason, but figures published last week indicate that the quantity of these “incidental admissions”, while likely still a minority, may be rising.

The impact of the disease was underlined as the number of NHS staff in London absent because of Covid doubled in just four days last week, suggested internal data seen by the Health Service Journal, with one in three staff unable to work by New Year’s Eve if the growth rate continued.

Disputing that projection, one official familiar with the situation said the rises would “hopefully reach some kind of plateau in the next few days”. However, in some parts of the capital the proportion of absentees was even higher, they disclosed: “Some NHS workplaces have been decimated.”

Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, which represents workforce leaders, acknowledged that the situation in London was “extremely concerning”. While absence because of sickness would normally be running at about 5 to 6 per cent at this time of year, “some places are reporting 8 [or] 9 per cent”, he added.

“Lots and lots of our colleagues are changing their plans over the next week, so that they can work extra shifts,” he said, but added that some non-emergency work would have to be cancelled within the next few days.

NHS England issued an edict last week that at least half of all patients medically fit to leave must be discharged to clear beds for a prospective surge of Covid patients.

However, Mortimer said transferring care would be harder because of the levels of absence in community settings, GP surgeries, care homes and domiciliary teams. “The whole system is under pressure,” he added.

But, even in London, where the UK’s Omicron wave has hit first, this bleak picture is not universal. David Probert, chief executive of University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, one of the capital’s flagship institutions, said: “As it stands today, we’re able to continue offering full elective care, full emergency care to all of our patients across each of our eight hospital sites.”

The number of Covid patients admitted had risen slightly in the last couple of days “but nothing one would determine to be a significant surge at this stage”, he added.

Official data released last week revealed of the 169 additional coronavirus-positive patients in hospital in London in the week to December 14, 111 were not being treated primarily for Covid, suggesting the figures could overstate the level of additional pressure on the NHS.

However, at Barts Health NHS Trust, the biggest in the country, a critical care consultant who asked not to be named suggested the staffing crisis was becoming increasingly unsustainable.

In Newham hospital, one of the trust’s five sites, a third of the operating theatre staff were off sick with Covid at the end of last week.

“The risk is that we will be caring for people in a ratio that the UK has never seen in terms of number of nurses to patients, or number of doctors to patients, and that will have a direct effect on survival,” said one health worker.

NHS London said that the Omicron variant was spreading rapidly in London “and this is affecting all Londoners, including NHS staff, which is leading to higher levels of staff absence and teams are working hard to minimise any impact from this and to work flexibly during this time”.

Measures to bolster staffing levels included “deploying both clinical and non-clinical staff from arms-length bodies to help with the vaccination drive, and in other clinical settings, and . . . helping people who have recently left the profession to return to support the NHS at this time”, it added.