COVID has exposed a long-running shortage of nurses that is putting NHS patients at risk medicalxpress.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from medicalxpress.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
“Protect the NHS” has been a recurring message that has shaped the UK’s response to COVID-19. The danger that the pandemic could overwhelm the NHS has never been far out of sight. As we approach the five-day relaxation of restrictions for Christmas, the question of whether the NHS will be able to cope is as pertinent now as it was in March.
What has become apparent is that the major limit to treatment capacity is not the number of hospital beds, nor even the number of intensive care beds with ventilators, it is the number of appropriately skilled nurses available to provide care. The pandemic has exposed an achilles heel: a deficit in nursing.