Doncaster hospital Covid admissions 'double in a week'

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said as of Sunday it had 201 patients with the virus in its hospitals

The number of patients being admitted with Covid-19 by one hospital trust has doubled in a week.

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said as of Sunday it had 201 patients with the virus in its hospitals.

It said if rates continued to rise then in the next two weeks it would have more patients than at any point during the pandemic.

The trust runs hospitals in South Yorkshire and north Nottinghamshire.

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The trust had treated 1,141 patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 since March and had cared for 408 patients since infection rates began to rise again in September.

Of the 201 Covid patients, 164 are at Doncaster Royal Infirmary, 16 at Bassetlaw Hospital in Worksop and 21 at Montagu Hospital in Mexborough.

The trusts' hospitals in Doncaster and Mexborough are both in South Yorkshire which entered tier 3 restrictions on Saturday.

Mr Parker said he hoped it would have an impact and urged people to stick to the new rules.

South Yorkshire moved into tier three of the government's restrictions scale on Saturday

Another South Yorkshire hospital also reported having higher numbers of Covid-positive inpatients than at the peak of the first wave.

A spokesman for the Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust said: "As of 8am this morning (Monday), we had 96 patients in Rotherham Hospital who have tested positive for Covid-19, of these six were in critical care.

"During the initial peak, the highest number of Covid-positive inpatients at any one time was 78."

Dan Jarvis, Mayor of the Sheffield City Region, said: "The brutal reality driving our decisions is the sheer number of cases in South Yorkshire.

"While there have been signs of a levelling off in Sheffield, numbers continue to rise in Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham, and we're seeing transmission from younger to older people."

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