NHS at risk of becoming ‘Covid-only’ health service

MPS’ report warns that failure to test staff weekly prevents hospitals running at normal levels of care

THE NHS risks becoming a largely “Covid-only” service unless staff start getting weekly tests to allow more of the service to function, MPS have warned.

A report by the Commons health and social care committee said Britain could be looking at “tens of thousands of avoidable deaths within a year” if it did not take urgent action to protect the running of normal services.

MPS said they could not understand why weekly tests for NHS staff had not been introduced to prevent the spread of Covid in hospitals and reduce the numbers forced to self-isolate.

The cross-party report said that during the pandemic’s first wave, too many patients, including those with advanced cancer, had been left “in limbo” and “in the lurch” when treatment was stopped.

MPS said “the message that the NHS was ‘open for business’ was found to be at odds with reality for some patients”.

Daloni Carlisle, a cancer patient who gave evidence to the inquiry, said: “I fell into a hole where I was absolutely in limbo. I did not know, and I had no communication about, when the chemotherapy might start” – despite the fact that her tumours were growing. Ms Carlisle, a mother-of-two, who has since died, said: “I cannot tell you how difficult that limbo period has been.”

Dr Charlotte Augst, the Patient Voices charity chief executive, said the mixed messages suggested “the NHS is open but don’t waste our time”.

The report cited research showing that if delays to cancer services continued there could be 35,000 avoidable deaths within a year. Urgent cancer referrals fell by 75 per cent at some points, it said, with the cancellation of 36,000 cancer operations by mid-may.

Sir Robert Francis, the Healthwatch England c hairman, said “many [patients] feel that they have been left in the lurch … they get messages that their so-called routine treatment has been cancelled or their screening has not happened, then they are left in a hole”.

Although Sir Simon Stevens, the NHS chief executive, issued an instruction in March that cancer services should not be stopped, “it is clear that this instruction was not always adhered to”.

Estimates suggested backlogs could cause the total waiting list for treatment to grow from 4.2 million to 10 million, while 8 million courses of dental treatment were also cancelled.

Jeremy Hunt, the health select committee chairman, said front-line staff had made heroic efforts. But, he added: “The pandemic has also massively impacted normal NHS services, something that could have been mitigated with earlier infection control measures in hospitals and clearer communication to patients whose care was disrupted.

“Weekly testing of NHS staff has been repeatedly promised in hotspot areas – but is still not being delivered. Failure to do so creates a real risk that the NHS will be forced to retreat into being a largely Covid-only service during a second spike.

“We’ve heard of severe disruption to services, especially cancer, and here we could be looking at tens of thousands avoidable deaths within a year.”

Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, told MPS on June 24 that NHS staff could expect regular testing, but this has not yet happened. The committee said clarification was needed from Prof Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, regarding “whether he has advised the Government to introduce routine testing of all NHS staff in the current virus hotspots and if not, why”. Prof Whitty said yesterday that the NHS was “absolutely open for business”.

Prof Stephen Powis, the NHS national medical director, said: “Having to treat over 110,000 people in hospital with coronavirus did inevitably disrupt some care, but even during the first peak of the virus, for every one Covid patient there were two non- Covid patients receiving treatment.”

All planned surgery except urgent cancer cases has been suspended at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in South Wales, after 82 cases of coronavirus were identified, including eight deaths.