Worcestershire's hospitals see Covid absences double over Christmas

The Worcestershire trust manages the Alexandra, Kidderminster and Worcestershire Royal hospitals

The number of staff off work at Worcestershire's main hospitals doubled over Christmas week.

There was a similar increase in absences at the Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust and smaller rises across the West Midlands.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said there were increasing levels of Covid-19 in the community.

It said was it was inevitable more staff were also testing positive or identified as a close contacts.

The trust recorded 173 absences due to coronavirus in the week to 2 January, out of 457 total absences - or 3% of all staff.

"Staffing levels across the trust are monitored on a daily basis to ensure that we can maintain safe patient care," Chief Executive Matthew Hopkins said.

Covid-19 rates in Worcester, Redditch and Kidderminster have all gone up in recent weeks.

There was a 66% rise in Redditch in the seven days up to 3 January, with 1,979 new cases per 100,000 people.

Resources stretched

For bosses at the Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Russells Hall Hospital, rising staff absences and Covid cases are stretching their resources. It saw a 77% increase in the same period.

The chief executive of the Dudley Group, Dian Wake, said: "If the numbers start to go up more, then we are going to have to risk assess and look at what elective cases can't go ahead in our hospital."

Russells Hall matron Lesley Leddington said the next few weeks "worries me, worries my colleagues" but the public can help and "to do all the right things" from getting booster jabs to hand hygiene.

Across the wider Midlands region about 4% of staff at acute NHS trusts were off due to Covid in the week ending 2 January.

That was on average an increase of 47% on the previous week.

In all, there were 16,602 absences across the Midlands in those seven days, due to either sickness or isolation linked to coronavirus.

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Across England, NHS absences due to Covid were up by 41% in the week to 2 January, compared with the previous week.

That meant about 4% of staff were absent from acute trusts each day - around 35,596 staff a day on average.

NHS national medical director Professor Stephen Powis said: "While we don't know the full scale of the potential impact this new strain will have, it's clear it spreads more easily and, as a result, Covid cases in hospitals are the highest they've been since February last year - piling even more pressure on hard working staff."