• Increase in beds planned
• Hospitals ‘safe for most patients’
• Call for COVID-free sites

THE HEAD of the Welsh NHS, Dr Andrew Goodall, delivered a sobering assessment of the nation’s capacity to handle any sharp increase in the number of patients requiring critical care.

He also said any benefits from the Welsh Government’s ‘firebreak’ lockdown would not filter through the system for several weeks.

Speaking at a press conference at Tuesday lunchtime (Nov 2), Dr Goodall said although Welsh hospitals were well-prepared for the usual winter pressures, cases of coronavirus meant they faced challenges to maintain services over the coming months.
Andrew Goodall said all of Wales’ critical care beds were now occupied.

Coronavirus patients occupy a third of critical care beds. The balance of critical care beds is occupied by the normal number of patients needing critical care.

Dr Goodall said an increase in critical care beds was possible to absorb a rise in coronavirus cases.

He will know, however, that any increase in critical care beds will run into the problem of finding suitably-qualified and experienced staff to attend patients occupying them.

Diverting existing staff to critical care units from other specialisms within the Welsh NHS will have a knock-on effect on other NHS services.

Macmillan Cancer Support has already expressed its concerns about cancer patients falling through the cracks in NHS staffing caused by the coronavirus.

In a report on COVID-19’S effects on cancer treatment, the charity says: ‘The NHS must ringfence the capacity needed to keep COVID-protected cancer services running, with no redeployment of staffing or repurposing of resources’.

Andrew Goodall also revealed that around one in forty of all cases reported nationally were attributable to patients contracting coronavirus while in hospital. The NHS identified 192 likely cases of transmission in hospitals during the previous week.

He added the prevalence of COVID in the wider population meant excluding from closed clinical settings was all-but impossible.
Dr Goodall stressed the spread of the virus in hospitals was nothing to do with poor infection control but reflected COVID’s infectiousness. It can be passed in its pre-symptomatic, asymptomatic, and symptomatic stages.

Dr Goodall emphasised that hospital care is safe.

Everyone admitted to hospital is tested. Six percent of those admitted to hospital test positive for COVID, regardless of whether they attend for treatment for the virus or not. Even the worst-affected area of Wales (Rhondda Cynon Taf) only three percent of hospital admissions are directly related to coronavirus infection. Over eighty-five percent of available NHS beds in Wales do not have coronavirus patients.

Plaid Cymru’s Rhun ap Iorwerth said: “People must have confidence that the Government is doing all it can to urgently provide ‘Green’ COVID-free, or ‘COVID-light’ sites for diagnosis and treatment.

“Given how quickly the virus can spread when it gets into health and care settings, they must have confidence also in steps taken to keep the virus out in the first place. I don’t want people who may need treatment deciding to stay away, shoring up more serious problems for themselves and the health service.”