Experts say latest number shows need to remain vigilant; Wales unveils new measures
- Wales to introduce new risk assessments for shops and workplaces
- Regulator refuses to approve mass daily testing at English schools
- UK bans arrivals from South America over Brazilian variant
- How to care for people with Covid at home
- Global coronavirus updates – live
An NHS hospital is bringing in military personnel trained in healthcare roles as it struggles with staff sickness amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Erika Denton, medical director of Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, said:
We have some help coming from military colleagues, with 30 military personnel who are trained a bit like our healthcare assistants – slightly different role. They will be coming in to support our clinical staff.
That’s obviously very significant for us. It’s very difficult for us to staff the hospital when we’ve got lots of people off sick.
I think this is the most challenged the position has ever been for the NHS, and unprecedented times for all of us.
We had a short period of time when we’ve not been able to do as much cancer surgery as we’d like to. We’re now going to be doing quite a lot of surgery at the [private] Spire Hospital in Norwich and that’s going to mean that we will catch up with a backlog of the more urgent things. More routine surgery I’m afraid will have to wait until the peak of this pandemic has eased and we have more capacity in the hospital. Everybody’s under significant pressure.
Unions have reacted with fury after Transport for London (TfL) published funding plans that include some cuts to bus routes and off-peak Tube services and a review of staff pensions, as the capital seeks a long-term financing agreement with central government.
In the plans, London’s mayor Sadiq Khan called for the capital to retain vehicle excise duty paid in the city, some £500m a year, to avoid the need to implement a £3.50 daily “border charge” to be paid by drivers coming into Greater London.
Continue reading…
