Behind-the-scenes access to hospital reveals Covid impact on staff and patients

Shattered staff in one of England’s largest hospitals say they are working “to the limit” of their ability, battling low morale, exhausting shift patterns, and the prospect that the worst is still to come.

As the number of cases continues to rise across the country, St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south-west London, has had to vastly expand intensive care capacity and move staff without specialist training to high dependency roles in an effort to tackle the workload.

The PA news agency was granted rare behind-the-scenes access to the coronavirus front line amid confirmation that a further 1,041 people died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK, the highest daily reported total since the first wave of infection in April.

London has been at the epicentre of the latest wave of Covid-19 cases, and St George’s has now seen its number of coronavirus patients at least matching the first peak.

Dr Mark Haden, an emergency department consultant, said: “We make it look like business as usual but it’s very much not – it’s very different to our usual pattern of work.

“Everyone’s stress levels are higher than usual. Everyone is working to the limit, to the threshold of what they’re able to.

“The hospital bed occupancy is very, very high, it has lots of Covid patients as inpatients at the moment. It’s very stressful for staff and that is starting to show.”

St George’s has had to expand the number of intensive care beds for the critically sick from 60 to 120, the vast majority of which are for coronavirus patients.

The rest are for those recovering from other serious trauma such as heart attacks or road traffic accidents.

Covid-19 case rates in south and east England
(PA Graphics)

Nurses who would usually be assigned to one patient are now having to deal with up to four casualties at one time.

And they are doing so while wearing uncomfortable personal protective equipment (PPE).

Such is the demand on the intensive care unit that staff from other departments are being drafted in to help – despite not being trained to do so.

ICU consultant Dr Mohamed Ahmed, 40, said: “When a nurse has care of one patient, there’s that ratio for a reason – every detail needs to be looked at.

“When they need to look after three or four patients, their standards are lowered.

“They feel they have to do their best but they come away feeling demotivated and demoralised. That’s really apparent. They clearly want to do the best they can.”

“It’s not just about Covid,” she said.

“If you go up a ladder this weekend and fall off it, there’s a chance you won’t get an ICU bed.

“People are still getting run over, they’re still self-harming, they’re still beating each other up.”

Matron Lindsey Izard at St George’s Hospital
Matron Lindsey Izard at St George’s Hospital (Marc Ward/PA)

She said: “I really do think a lot of people have thought, ‘This is the writing on the wall for me as a nurse, I’m not sure I want to do this again’.”

It came as an NHS England briefing apparently showed London’s hospitals on the verge of being overwhelmed by coronavirus even under the “best case” scenario.

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