“None of this is normal in the NHS. At our trust, we have three times the level of ICU patients that we had at the same time last year. We have converted several floors of our hospital to intensive care. We have redeployed multiple members of staff consultants…people from all specialties have been redeployed in the roles that they don’t normally fulfil”

“There is an immediate, short, medium and long term consequence that needs to be looked at. The immediate term consequence is our ridiculously high numbers of coronavirus cases that’s going on at the moment. Our short term goal is vaccination to try and drive that down…and our long term is to deal with our ballooning waiting lists and our mental health crisis”.

He also went on to respond to comments made by a senior MP earlier this week:

“This is basically a crisis situation…I would hope that an elected member of parliament who has people dying in his constituency would help to acknowledge that””It is not an admission of defeat to accept that one was wrong in making comments in the past…that is something which is difficult to do in politics, but unfortunately it is necessary to do in health. Otherwise we don’t learn from our mistakes. And if we do not learn from our mistakes in a pandemic situation, people die.”

DAUK’s Dr Katie Sanderson, talked to BBC Today about what it was like in March compared to today. She talks about the more hopeful situation dealing with Covid patients now due to the increased knowledge on the ground compared to previously, but also highlights her fears for another spike in cases in January. She reiterates how important it is to be sensible, and how every death now feels preventable due to the ongoing roll out of the vaccine.”
#protectthefrontline

Dr Katie Sanderson, committee member of DAUK and junior doctor working in London spoke out on the care of COVID patients during the second wave.

“I found it much scarier this time. We are much better at looking after these patients. I think we know how to treat them much better. The volume of people turning up who are really unwell is just unremitting and the concern is how are we going to manage over the next few weeks – looking after people well takes time.”

“There’s a finite number of staff available. And so I suppose every new admission just means less time for everybody else.”

“So what we’re facing at the moment is we’re facing immediate, short, medium and long term problems in terms of health.”

“Our immediate problem has been demonstrated by the mayor’s announcement today as the cases of coronavirus rise in hospital. The short term issue is getting vaccines sorted. Medium term, we have a large amount of planned care. There are people who are unwell with non-covid issues, who are sat at home, who are not having their operations and not having their planned care. They will need to be treated in addition to people who will continue to develop other conditions.”

“Longer term, we will have ever increasing waiting lists, we have mental health issues already stacking up. And these are problems that are also going to affect the NHS. So we need strategies to deal with this.”