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Oct 2020
Leeds hospitals ‘very close’ to cutting back on routine services
A medical chief has warned that hospitals in Leeds may have to cut back on non-Covid services in order to cope with a second wave of the virus.
Victoria Eaton, director of public health for Leeds, said the city’s hospitals were “very close” to having to cut back on services and added that some areas may struggle to obtain enough staff to fill Nightingale hospitals which have now been put on standby.
Ms Eaton said hospitals were trying to clear their backlog of work and deal with delayed procedures and treatments.
She said “The challenge of this time is that other NHS services are not being stood down ini the way that they were in the spring.
“We’ve got a huge backlog now of people who desperately need surgery and treatment for their conditions, which colleagues in the NHS are absolutely committed to continue with, and therefore it gives them very little wriggle room within the hospital to accommodate all of those cases plus the new Covid ones that are now coming in.
She went on to say that medics were working to look “in the round of how we save the most lives directly or indirectly, from Covid.”
Speaking of the staffing concerns, she said “The buildings are there, the issue is how we get the staffing into the Nightingales because, in spring, the workforce plan was for people who were stood down from other services to go to staff the Nightingales.
“So I think there is a real challenge around how to get enough staff to make those sites work. It’s incredibly challenging this time around.”
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Posted by Karen Motley, 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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