Coronavirus: ‘Dramatic’ surge in patients forces hospital to cancel more operations

All patients waiting for routine operations at a major teaching hospital over the next two weeks have had their surgery cancelled after a “dramatic increase” in coronavirus admissions.

Nottingham University Hospitals Trust said it had no alternative due to the pressure from Covid-19 which had seen more than 200 patients in hospital with the disease in the last few days. Surgery for cancer and urgent and emergency cases will not be affected.

The trust’s chief executive, Tracy Taylor, appealed to the public to help ease the pressure on the hospital by following social distancing rules and washing their hands regularly.

She said the surge in cases at the East Midlands trust was now at similar levels to that seen in April.

“We have made the difficult decision to postpone some of our non-urgent surgery and appointments until 6 November following a dramatic increase in the number of patients with Covid-19 in our hospital.”

She added: "Over the last few days we have exceeded 200 patients with the virus in the hospital, and everyday this is increasing by nearly another full ward of people.

“Some of these patients, 16 at the time of writing, are sadly very unwell and receiving treatment by our critical care staff. Some more have also died with the virus in the last few days.”

The trust was forced to cancel most of its routine operations last week after seeing 100 admissions a day and growing pressure in its accident and emergency department.

A string of coronavirus outbreaks had also led to seven wards at its Nottingham City Hospital site being closed reducing the number of beds available for patients.

Hospitals in Birmingham, Bradford and Liverpool have also had to cancel operation as the numbers of patients needing hospital treatment increased over the past week.

The cancellations have come as the latest data shows there were more than 21,242 more cases of infection confirmed in the last 24 hours with a total of 7,433 patients in hospital across the UK. A total of 189 deaths were reported on Wednesday.

Tracy Taylor added: “This surge is now at levels similar to April and is combining with our normal winter emergency pressures. Unfortunately, this means that we’ve had to make this difficult decision to pause some of the treatment we offer.

“This is not a decision we have taken lightly but we need to ensure we have the beds and staff available to care for those in urgent need during this surge of Covid-19.”

She apologised to patients who would soon receive letters telling them their appointments had been cancelled adding: “I am so sorry that we have had to make this decision but it is necessary to ensure we can continue to keep everyone in the hospital safe while we deal with this virus.”

She urged patients who were in need of emergency help to still attend the hospital’s A&E as normal.

“This is a challenging situation but we are working with our colleagues across Nottinghamshire’s integrated care system to do the best for our patients. You can help us too by washing your hands regularly, wearing a face mask to cover your nose and mouth, and keeping two metres from those outside your household. Together we can stop the spread of this virus.”

NHS England had instructed hospitals to achieve 90 per cent of normal services during October but for some hospitals in northern England and the Midland this now appears impossible.

At the University Hospitals Birmingham Trust bosses have announced patients will be turned away from A&E if they are not a true emergency while leaked emails seen by The Independent this week showed surgeons were told to begin cancelling some low priority patients.

Since the first wave of coronavirus the NHS waiting list has increased to more than 4.3 million patients with more than 111,000 now waiting longer than a year for treatment.