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A pandemic was always going to put the health system under strain, but Britain was woefully unready
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Last week brought the tragic news of the first medical professionals to fall victim to Britain’s coronavirus epidemic. Dr Habib Zaidi was a community GP in Essex who died from suspected Covid-19 symptoms last Wednesday. Dr Adil El Tayarlar was a London-based organ transplant surgeon who believed he contracted the illness while working in hospitals in the West Midlands. There will very likely be more doctors, nurses and support staff who also lose their lives as a result of their critical work in treating patients with the virus. It is an appalling reminder that, every day, NHS and social care staff are putting their own lives at risk in order to save the lives of others.
In recent days, the effort to ramp up the NHS’s critical care capacity has been incredible. Work is well under way to build a new hospital at London’s Excel centre: from next week, NHS Nightingale will provide 500 beds, with space to expand to 4,000; an incredible 27-fold increase in the capital’s critical care beds. Similar hospital expansion programmes are getting under way in Birmingham and Manchester. Continue reading...