An NHS boss has said that Covid and flu cases have not yet peaked and warned that 'it's going to carry on being tough' for the health service as winter continues.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, told BBC Breakfast that January is usually the 'hardest month' for the NHS. It comes as the UK is facing its third winter in a row with Covid-19 on the rise, meanwhile rising flu cases are putting extra pressure on already overstretched health services.
Mr Taylor said: “I think it’s very difficult to be clear. I don’t think the statistics would give us reason to feel that we have peaked – January is normally the hardest month for the health service. So I think the one thing that we can say is that it’s going to carry on being tough, and that’s why it’s important to be clear about the situation and it’s important to have clear messages to the public.
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"But also… it’s really important that, as ministers return to their desks, that they consider ways of reopening negotiations with the trade unions because four days of strikes on top of the situation we’re in now is the last thing we need.”
Unlike in 2020 and 2021, when coronavirus was the main driver of sickness and hospitalisations, this winter has also seen a sharp jump in flu cases, putting extra pressure on NHS staff already struggling to clear a record backlog of treatment.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that Covid-19 infections increased in England and Scotland in early December. A total of 1.4 million people in private households in the UK were likely to test positive for coronavirus in the week to December 9.
This was up from 1.1 million in late November but below the two million weekly infections in early October. The estimates published by the ONS give a snapshot of what was happening in the UK at the start of December, when coronavirus was starting to become more prevalent among the population.
More recent data shows the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 in England, Scotland and Wales is on a clear upward trend, with patients in England up 29% in the past week to the highest level for nearly two months. The ONS infection survey is the most reliable measure of the prevalence of coronavirus and is based on a sample of swab tests from households across the UK.
There is a lag in the reporting of the data due to the time it takes for the survey to be compiled, however.
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