Surgery cancelled at Greater Manchester hospitals as NHS pressures mount

Some non-urgent operations are being cancelled at Greater Manchester hospitals as staff shortages and the “rising impact” of Covid continue to affect NHS trusts.

In addition according to Downing Street, more than 20 NHS trusts in England have declared critical incidents.

Health chiefs in Greater Manchester said around 15 per cent of their workforce were currently either ill with Covid or isolating.

Gillian Keegan, health minister, said the government knew “this was going to be one of the most pressurised winters” for the NHS and that additional investment had been provided to help the service cope.

She added that declaring critical incidents was part of “our NHS contingency and resilience plans” that are “tried and tested” and in place every winter.

Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership said the decision affecting 17 hospitals was “a temporary measure” and that cardiac and vascular surgery, cancer care and transplantation would not be affected.

However, it added that Covid admissions were increasing sharply, with more than one in five patients in some of the region’s hospitals testing positive, and said the “challenges may get worse” in the next two weeks.

Chief executive of Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, Fiona Noden, said the suspension of surgery had been “a very difficult decision”, which was taken to ensure “we can keep people safe, maintain infection control, deploy staff where they are needed most and keep looking after people who need urgent and emergency care.”

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Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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