Last modified on Fri 1 Jan 2021 10.42 EST
England’s chief nurse has said NHS and care staff are working “incredibly hard” to cope with record numbers of Covid-19 patients, amid concern that frontline staff are close to burnout.
Ruth May pleaded with the public to follow the coronavirus advice to help relieve the pressure on hospital staff, after two days of record hospital admissions.
She tweeted: “My fellow nurses and other fantastic NHS and care staff are working incredibly hard to care for record numbers of very sick patients with Covid-19 so please, please follow the advice: remember ‘hands face, space’ and stay home to save lives.”
Emergency healthcare staff at “battle stations” amid the rising number of coronavirus patients are at risk of burnout, a senior medic has warned.
Adrian Boyle, vice president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said people were “tired, frustrated and fed-up”, while Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said the next few weeks would be “nail-bitingly difficult for the NHS”.
Dr Boyle told BBC Breakfast: “What is it going to be like over the next couple of months? I don’t know, I am worried.
“We are very much at battle stations.
“There will be short-term surges of morale but people are tired, frustrated and fed-up, as everybody is, whether they work in hospital or not.
UK in eye of the storm amid surging new coronavirus cases - International - World ahram.org.eg - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ahram.org.eg Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
British medics have warned on Friday that hospitals around the country face a perilous few weeks amid surging new coronavirus infections that have been blamed on a new variant of the virus.
A day after the United Kingdom posted a record 55,892 new infections and another 964 coronavirus-related deaths, concerns are mounting about the effect on the overstretched National Health Service (NHS).
Field hospitals that were constructed in the early days of the pandemic but were subsequently mothballed are being reactivated.
The Royal College of Nursing’s England director, Mike Adams, told Sky News that the UK was in the “eye of the storm” and that it was “infuriating” to see people not following the social distancing guidance or wearing masks.
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