Operations cancelled as hospitals reach ‘critical point’

ROUTINE operations are being cancelled across England as the NHS makes way for coronavirus patients.

Steve Warburton of Liverpool University Hospital warned staff that it had reached a ‘critical point’ while Plymouth’s Derriford Hospital has already paused non-critical planned surgery. With a backlog of 4.2 million currently on waiting lists, the new measure can only add to the pressure as the Royal College of Surgeons warn of a ‘tsunami’ of cancellations.

Clinicians are concerned about patients missing out on vital scans, consultations and treatments if the situation continues to worsen, with the focus being on how to ‘save the most lives, directly or indirectly from Covid’.

Victoria Eaton, Leeds’s director of public health said “We’ve got a huge backlog now of people who desperately need surgery and treatment for their conditions, which colleagues in the NHS are absolutely committed to continue with, and therefore it gives them very little wriggle room within the hospital to accommodate all of those cases plus the new Covid ones that are now coming in.”

Earlier in the week it was announced that Nightingale Hospitals in Manchester, Sunderland and Harrogate, which were built during the initial stages of the pandemic, could soon be set to accept new Covid-19 patients.

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