Covid-19: Ipswich and Colchester NHS boss welcomes new staff guidance

NHS trust chief executive Nick Hulme said new guidance could help reduce the number of operations being cancelled

The head of two hospitals said allowing fully vaccinated NHS staff to keep working after being exposed to someone with Covid should help control waiting lists and reduce cancellations.

Nick Hulme, chief executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Trust, welcomed the government's new decision about NHS staff and health workers.

He said on Friday the trust had up to 40 staff isolating.

"This [decision] will allow us to continue with our services," he said.

The trust runs both Ipswich and Colchester hospitals.

Under the new guidance announced by the Department of Health and Social Care, some fully vaccinated frontline NHS staff in England will be allowed to carry on working, amid concerns over employee shortages.

Colchester General Hospital is one of those run by the NHS trust

Mr Hulme said while 30 or 40 staff - out of a total of about 11,000 - may not sound like a lot, "if a couple of those staff are, for example, surgeons who are performing lists, then you lose lists for 10 days and effectively their whole team becomes redundant unless we can redeploy them".

"So the impact is very far-reaching, even if the numbers are relatively low."

Mr Hulme said the trust had been forced to cancel some of its operations.

He spoke of the "incredibly long waiting lists", adding: "We need to get a grip on those... and every time somebody gets pinged in a public space, it reduces the staff that we've got available".

Ipswich Hospital staff could now be allowed to continue working under the government's new guidance

"What will happen is if someone is pinged by the app then we will ask them to have a PCR test," Mr Hulme said.

"If that is negative and they are double vaccinated then they will be able to return to work and then we will insist that they have a lateral flow test every day for the 10 days that they would have been self-isolating.

"I think it's a really positive step.

"I welcome that decision that the government has made over the weekend because it will allow us to continue with our services."

He said he hoped this would "significantly reduce the number of cancellations that we may have".

He also urged caution, tweeting earlier to say the relaxation of rules did not mean the pandemic was over.

"Please think about your own health, your friends and family and the communities we live in when you make choices," he wrote.

Mr Hulme said: "I won't change my behaviour at all because of 'Freedom Day' or fear day, as I'm referring to it, because we've got to keep a close eye on this."