As the NHS workforce is sickly rising, hospital bosses desperately try to fill staffing gaps. Figures suggest that this number has risen by almost 1,000 per day.
Some 18,829 NHS staff at acute trusts were absent due to Covid on December 19 – up from 12,240 a week earlier.
This equates to around 941 extra staff calling in sick or isolating per day in between – putting further strain on the already stretched NHS.
As the NHS worker sick increases by almost 1,000 per day, hospital bosses desperately try to fill staffing gaps (file photo).
London was the hardest hit with Covid absent at Barts Health NHS Trust increasing from 91 up to 338 in seven days.
Alistair Chesser is the company’s medical director. He stated that he has plans to transfer staff within the next few weeks, if needed.
London’s Imperial College Healthcare also has had to request staff members to be moved to areas with a high absence rate (approximately 7%)
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals’ bosses warn that the hospital is ‘about 10 days behind London’ and staff sickness has risen from 421 up to 699 in seven days.
Patricia Marquis of the Royal College of Nursing stated that there were’much’ more trusts to prevent staff infection.
Some 18,829 NHS staff at acute trusts were absent due to Covid on December 19 – up from 12,240 a week earlier (file photo used)
She stated that hospitals with a shortage of staff can’t afford to have a large number of people away from work.
Hospital trusts and employers have many other options to prevent nursing staff and others from becoming infected at the workplace, including those working with COVID-19 patients.
“Faced by growing staff shortages and increasing patient numbers over the next days and weeks we will have to make difficult decisions but will not support any measure that is detrimental to professional or patient safety.