It is understood that non-urgent surgery is now at a minimum, and staff have been told to limit holiday to five days — including bank holidays — between December 21 and mid-February. A consultant at the hospital told this paper: "Although we're not at quite the same Covid peaks we saw back in April, overall things are very busy and very tight here as we have the usual increased pressures on the ED (emergency department) and beds that we see every winter now, on top of the Covid surge." NHS chief exec Sir Simon Stevens visits the Royal Free at the outset of its Covid vaccination programme in December.