Top medics at the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust have explained they feared Omicron could lead to one in four elective operations being cancelled - but that work to mitigate this throughout January meant only "around 10%" were affected in the end.
Meanwhile, the Trust's chief exec Sir James Mackey warned that it remained "under pressure" from Covid-19, with staff absences rising again, mirroring an increase in cases in the community. Sir James, who is also the Government's adviser in charge of the national recovery of elective surgery waiting lists after the pandemic, said he hoped the issue would subside in "the next two or three weeks".
The doctors in charge of surgery and A&E at the NHS Trust - which runs the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital (NSECH) in Cramlington along with smaller hospital across Northumberland and North Tyneside - told a board meeting on Thursday about how they had coped with a difficult winter.
