Covid: Peterborough hospital under 'enormous stress'

Peterborough City Hospital patients were frustrated" by visiting restriction, trust said

A health trust has said a city hospital remains under enormous stress with Covid numbers still high.

North West Anglia NHS Trust (NWAFT), which runs Peterborough City Hospital, was informed the hospital currently had 91 inpatients with Covid, 47 of who were asymptomatic on admission.

Last month, the hospital introduced restricted visitors.

The trust was told patients were not being discharged due to a shortage of community places.

At a meeting to update NWAFT's board of governors, Dr Kanchan Rege, chief medical officer for the trust, said patients were getting "very frustrated" with relatives not being allowed to visit and as a result, the hospital had seen "a rise in the numbers of falls being reported".

The Local Democracy Reporting Service reported that Dr Rege said the rising infection rates meant it had to maintain its strict visitor policy.

The board was also told by Dr Rege that the hospital had about 125 patients "who are 'medically fit' for discharge, but we can't actually safely discharge them at the moment as the social care resources are not in place to take them on and look after them".

In Peterborough, the Covid case rate was 441 per 100,000 people in the seven days to 18 November, compared to 413 in the week to 11 November.

Across England, the rate rose to 418 from 366 for the same period.

'Difficult to cope'

The hospital was linking-in with the clinical commissioning group to see if any external beds would be available.

Phil Walmsley, NWAFT chief operating officer, said in a statement that patients were finding it "difficult to cope with all the delays".

"But there is only so much that we can do in this kind of situation with the staffing that we have, and we must do everything we can... to reduce the effect of that pressure on them," he said.

The board was informed 60 new full-time equivalent staff had been hired last month, including 13 midwives, with some of that recruitment from overseas.

The trust was also told 60% of staff had received their flu and Covid booster jabs since they were introduced at the end of September.

Peterborough is an Enhanced Response Area (ERA) which means it is receiving additional funds from government to address increasing Covid rates.

Peterborough City Hospital is seeking more volunteers to ease pressure on staff

Meanwhile, more volunteers were wanted at the hospital to support patients.

The emergency department was seeking helpers "during the extremely busy winter months".

Volunteer tasks included getting drinks and talking to patients.