Advertisement
Coronavirus hospital admissions have begun to rise again after the second national lockdown ended last week, official figures show – after it emerged that more than 10,000 people acquired the disease when they were being treated in hospital for other illnesses.
Data released by the Department for Health indicated that the average number of hospital admissions stood at 1,262 for England on Sunday – up three per cent from the week before.
The growth in hospitalisations was mainly drive by increases in London, which is teetering on the brink of being moved from Tier 2 to the at most risk Tier 3 restrictions that would decimate the City s economy. The East of England, the South East and the Midlands also all experienced a rise in admissions that pushed the national seven-day average up.
Tameside hospital in Greater Manchester
Credit: Paul Cooper
A hospital where there was a sudden rise in Covid-19 deaths in the autumn failed to test all new emergency patients on admission, the Telegraph can disclose.
Tameside hospital in Greater Manchester admitted Jean Hale, 79, as an emergency patient in June and put her on a ward with Covid-19 sufferers without swabbing her first.
By that point in the pandemic, NHS hospitals had been instructed to give coronavirus tests to all “non-elective” patients that required an overnight stay.
Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust accounted for a third of the 52 Covid-19 deaths in England’s hospitals in the week to 10 September. It reported 18 deaths at the hospital, up from six a week earlier.