Ahead of today’s confirmation by prime minister that most lockdown restrictions will be eased on 19
July, the chief executive of NHS Providers, said:
“NHS trust leaders understand the range of factors that need to
be balanced when making the decision to ease from 19 July
onwards, and the logic for doing it now rather than during the
winter.
“But they are also clear that it’s important ministers recognise
the impact on the NHS of today’s decisions. If COVID-19 infection
rates rise, as we would expect them to, given the relaxation of
restrictions, the pressure on the NHS will increase.
“The NHS will need to treat increasing numbers of COVID-19
patients in hospital at a time when the service is going full
pelt to recover backlogs, is seeing record emergency care demand
for this time of year, is losing significant numbers of staff to
self-isolation and has much reduced capacity due to infection
control.
“This will inevitably mean the NHS will be unable to recover care
backlogs as fast as trusts, and patients, would like and
ministers should be clear about this trade off. In this context,
predictions of at least 1,000 COVID-19 admissions a day from the
Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies are concerning.
“We also need to be aware of the other risks here – that the
vaccines do not offer 100% protection and that there are still
significant numbers of people who haven’t had their double jab
and two-week protection build up. Trust leaders are also
concerned about the impact of long COVID, not least because there
is so much we do not yet understand about the extent and severity
of its impact.”
