Multiple NHS trusts declare critical incidents amid calls to slash isolation in face of Covid staffing crisis
MULTIPLE NHS trusts have declared critical incidents over Covid staff shortages.
It has lead to renewed calls to slash isolation for people who test positive from seven to five days.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents trusts, told Sky News around half a dozen hospitals declared critical incidents in the last five days - it is thought to be seven.
He said: "It is a sensible, planned thing to do to ensure that trust can carry on providing the services that it needs to provide, particularly the critical and essential services."
Although he stressed staff shortages are largely localised, dismissing suggestions a quarter of all workers could soon be off with Covid.
Maggie Throup, vaccines minister added: "I think the critical incidents are announced and then they can be very short-term ones and it’s saying to the other trusts around 'can we have some extra help, can we have some mutual aid'.
"Sometimes it’s just a matter of hours that the critical incident is in place for, other times it’s longer.
"But it’s actually reaching out to the wider NHS to say we have got a problem in this particular area and it’s sometimes quite geographical as well and for different reasons, it can be staff shortages, it could be other reasons."
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A string of hugely positive studies show Omicron IS milder than other strains, with the first official UK report revealing the risk of hospitalisation is 50 to 70 per cent lower than with Delta.
Covid booster jabs protect against Omicron and offer the best chance to get through the pandemic, health officials have repeatedly said.
The Sun's Jabs Army campaign is helping get the vital extra vaccines in Brits' arms to ward off the need for any new restrictions.
Daily Covid cases have been over 100,000 for almost a fortnight, with one in 10 NHS staff off sick on New Year's Eve.
Despite the milder illness, anyone who tests positive has to isolate for a week.
Before the Christmas break, Health Secretary Sajid Javid cut the number of isolation days from 10 to seven.
Last week officials in the US slashed their isolation requirements from 10 days to five, prompting calls for the UK to follow.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman today said: "We keep a very close eye on NHS capacity, that's something we track very closely.
"We know that admissions and occupancy are increasing significantly at the moment - we're not seeing that same jump in beds requiring ventilation, which is pleasing, and almost certainly a function of both the nature of Omicron and our successful booster programme.
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"But we keep an extremely close eye on NHS capacity at all times."
Asked whether the number of people in intensive care (ICU) was playing an "important role in the Prime Minister's thinking" on how to handle the Omicron spike, the Downing Street spokesman replied: "It is one aspect that informs how the NHS is dealing with this current wave."
It comes after a health chief said Lancashire is bracing for a "tsunami of Omicron" as a critical incident was declared there.
Morecambe Bay NHS Trust sounded the alarm on Monday evening amid rising Covid hospital admissions and staff testing positive for coronavirus.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Dr Sakthi Karunanithi, public health director for Lancashire County Council, warned the county was at "the foothills" of an Omicron wave.
He said: "Lancashire is beginning to experience what London did at the beginning of last month.
"We are clearly seeing a shift from 20s and 30s and 40-year-olds being affected by Omicron to a clear shift to a more 60-plus age group being affected, and that is what is causing us concern as well as the immediate concern being absence, staff absence, both in the NHS and education - schools are just going to re-open this week.
"But this is all meaning that we are not able to concentrate on the non-Covid issues, that's really needing to be addressed immediately as well, so it's a double challenge we face: not only fighting Covid but all the other pent-up demand and need due to non-Covid issues."
It comes after a vaccines chief handed Brits another shot in the arm - as he said the worst days of the Covid crisis are "absolutely behind us".
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, the chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), says society must soon reopen fully.
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Meanwhile, hospital admissions are finally dropping in London for the first time since the mutation emerged.
And a top expert says she believes life could be back to normal in just 60 days as cases peak.