Covid: Suffolk hospital staff sickness 'higher than normal'

The Bury St Edmunds hospital said it was facing a high number of staff shortages due to Covid and winter sicknesses

Three NHS hospitals have said they are dealing with a higher than normal level of staff absence but have stopped short of declaring critical incidents.

The West Suffolk Hospital said 6.5% of staff - 323 people - were off work due to the pandemic and seasonal illnesses.

It announced an "internal" critical incident and was moving staff between wards.

Ipswich Hospital had 376 absences, while Colchester Hospital had about 400 staff off work.

A critical incident means hospital bosses are concerned they cannot provide priority services, such as treatment for cancer or heart disease, which means they may need help.

An internal critical incident means they think they can deal with the situation within the hospital.

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Nicola Cottingham, chief operating officer at the West Suffolk Hospital, in Bury St Edmunds, said: "We review the situation frequently during the day and we move our staff around to areas that are experiencing staff absences in order to maintain services."

The hospital said it would normally have 3% to 4% of staff off at any one time.

Ms Cottingham said the complexity of Covid and the need to segregate patients to avoid transmission was also reducing its bed capacity.

"Unfortunately we've had to make some really difficult decisions over the past week," she said.

Planned surgery and non-urgent operations were being cancelled although cancer surgery and patients with high clinical needs were being prioritised.

Ipswich Hospital said it expected the number of Covid patients in its beds to increase in the next few weeks

East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT), which runs Ipswich and Colchester hospitals and smaller community hospitals in Aldeburgh, Clacton, Felixstowe, Halstead, Harwich and Felixstowe, said about 7.5% of its 11,500 staff were absent.

Colchester employs 5,333 staff, while Ipswich has 5,126.

Neill Moloney, acting chief executive of ESNEFT, said staff sickness was "a lot higher than we're used to; it obviously is having quite a considerable impact".

"We have about 56 [Covid] patients on the Ipswich site - we are anticipating that will increase over the next few weeks and have been planning for that," he said.

The Trust said it was able to redeploy staff across units, but had not declared an internal critical incident.

"So this time we're not in a critical incident but we will review that, if we need to get additional support," Mr Moloney said.

On Tuesday, the Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care System, declared a critical incident for its biggest hospital, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, after patients with Covid almost doubled, from 50 to 91, since Friday.