Virus-related staff shortages expose NHS underfunding - The Yorkshire Post says

Health professionals have felt so much of the burden during the Covid-19 crisis and, despite the relatively positive news the Omicron variant seems less severe than previous kinds, staff sickness is continuing to pile pressure on the NHS.
Picture: PA.Picture: PA.
Picture: PA.

Figures in The Sunday Times yesterday showed how Covid-related absences reached 40,325 on Dec 31, an increase of 62 per cent in five days, including 19,143 nurses and midwives and 2,120 doctors.

A letter to NHS bosses warned that Yorkshire Ambulance Service was close to declaring a major incident because of significant staffing shortages, which would mean paramedics could carry out “rapid handovers” to A&Es and leave immediately.

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Meanwhile, York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has offered its staff an increased cent pay incentive to work extra as it deals with busy wards.

This came as Ministers were tasked with developing “robust contingency plans” for workplace absences amid rising cases that could lead to a quarter of staff off work, reported the BBC, which said public sector leaders have been asked to prepare for “worst case scenarios” of 10 to 25 per cent absence rates.

It is little wonder that so many readers asked, after news that another so-called Nightingale hospital was to be built in Leeds, how on earth it would be staffed.

And it is no surprise, also, that tens of thousands of vaccine volunteers have been given timely praise for their “amazing” work in giving up around two million hours of their time to help with the jabs rollout throughout 2021.

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Once again, however, the virus has exposed the under-funding and lack of resources in the NHS and related sectors.

The good faith and tireless efforts of those keeping the country safe should not shield the need for Ministers to step up and commit to those protections.

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