Covid-19: Hospitals treating '50% more' patients than first wave

King's Mill Hospital is one of Nottinghamshire's main hospitals

A county's hospitals are treating 50% more people with Covid-19 compared to the pandemic's first wave, a health boss says.

Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Group's Dr Amanda Sullivan said the number of patients in hospital beds has risen markedly.

She added more than 7% of the current patients need to be on a ventilator.

However, survival rates of people in the county requiring intensive care have improved, from 72% to 85%.

Speaking at a Nottingham City Council outbreak control engagement board meeting this week, Dr Sullivan said hospitals across both Nottingham University Hospitals and Sherwood Forest Hospitals trusts have seen admissions climb in recent weeks.

"We had 456 people in beds around 3 November and that has continued to stay relatively stable over the last week," she said.

"It does mean that now we have got 50% more people in hospital than we did in the peak of the first wave, and we saw 56 deaths in the week running up to 4 November."

Dr Sullivan said the increase showed "the tracking through of the infections [in the community] into hospitals" but added the improvement of survival rates was "optimistic news".

The group told the BBC during the first peak, the number of people admitted into a hospital bed in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire was 296 on 14 April.

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In early October, Nottingham recorded the highest seven-day coronavirus infection rate in the UK.

It peaked at more than 1,000 per 100,000 people but has since fallen to 340.6, according to latest Public Health England data.

Tier three restrictions were introduced for the whole county before being superseded by the four-week national lockdown.

Both the city and county are among 67 areas due to receive thousands of rapid result Covid-19 tests to help detect asymptomatic cases.

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