NHS still has ‘insufficient’ intensive care beds, bosses warn

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NHS still has ‘insufficient’ intensive care beds, bosses warn as they demand review of capacity after Covid crisis ‘strongly confirmed’ hospitals don’t have enough space

  • NHS Providers CEO Chris Hopson said it wasn’t safe to suddenly increase beds
  • There must be systematic improvement to set hospitals up with bigger capacity
  • UK ranks ‘towards the bottom of the European league table’ for capacity, he said 

By Sam Blanchard Deputy Health Editor For Mailonline

Published: | Updated:

The NHS has ‘insufficient’ capacity on its intensive care wards and the Covid-19 crisis ‘strongly confirmed’ its capacity problem, hospital bosses have warned. 

Chris Hopson, the CEO of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals around the country, has called for an urgent review of the way intensive care is managed.

He said the country has significantly lower intensive care capacity than similar countries in Europe and this could be harming public healthcare.

Much of the lockdown rules imposed in the UK during the Covid crisis has been an effort to shield the NHS from being swamped by patients.

Non-Covid care has taken a battering during the past year with many people seeing operations, scans and appointments postponed or cancelled.

And hospitals must now scramble to catch up and see as many overdue patients as possible while also coping with ongoing coronavirus admissions and new patients developing other illnesses.

Intensive care units have been considerably busier than usual coping with seriously ill Covid patients, but numbers have been coming down in recent weeks. 

Nearly 4,500 people are being treated in hospital beds every day in England up more than 40 per cent for this time of year amid the Covid pandemic (left). Pressure on hospital intensive care units has fallen nearly 25 per cent in the last month (right), but there are still nearly 1,500 more people in hospital beds than this time last year

Chris Hopson, the CEO of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals around the country, has called for an urgent review of the way intensive care is managed

Chris Hopson, the CEO of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals around the country, has called for an urgent review of the way intensive care is managed

Mr Hopson drew attention to regional disparities with his comments, saying that the East of England, South West and South East were falling short in particular.

He said: ‘Trusts’ experience of Covid-19 has strongly confirmed what we already knew – that the NHS has insufficient critical care capacity.

‘We now need a formal review of what critical care capacity is required going forward.

‘It’s neither safe nor sensible to rely on NHS hospital trusts being able to double or triple their capacity at the drop of a hat as they’ve had to over the last two months, with all the disruption to other care and impossible burdens on staff that involves.’

To make his case for more NHS critical care beds, Mr Hopson outlined how it differed from countries on the continent.

He said: ‘The review needs to look at the overall level of critical care capacity – the UK is towards the bottom of the European league table for critical care beds per head of population.

‘Whilst the UK has 7.3 critical care beds per 100,000 people, Germany has 33.8 and the USA 34.3. 

‘We also have comparatively fewer critical care beds than France, Italy, Australia and Spain.’ 

He said the review should also examine critical care transport services and trusts’ ability to add ‘surge capacity’ when needed.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: ‘The Government is determined to back the NHS in every possible way in its fight against this virus, investing £52 billion this year and £20 billion next.

‘This is on top of £9.4 billion capital funding to build and upgrade 40 new hospitals and £3 billion earmarked for supporting recovery and reducing the NHS waiting list.

‘We know how integral staffing is, and there are a record number of qualified doctors working in our NHS, with over 6,500 more doctors and over 10,500 more nurses compared to the previous year, and the Government is on track to deliver 50,000 more nurses by the end of this Parliament.’

PRESSURE ON NHS INTENSIVE CARE UNITS HAS FALLEN 25% IN A MONTH

The number of critically-ill patients taking up intensive care beds in NHS hospitals in England has dropped by a quarter over the last month, official figures revealed last week.

But there are still nearly 4,500 people being treated in critical care units each day, according to figures that lay bare the huge amount of pressure Covid has thrust onto the stretched health service.

For comparison, around 3,100 ICU beds were occupied during the same week — between February 15 and 21 — over the past four winters.

Coronavirus cases have dropped rapidly since the start of January, at the peak of the second wave. But it takes longer for pressure to ease on the NHS because of the lag between getting ill, developing symptoms and asking for a test and becoming seriously unwell. 

Hospital admissions from Covid began to drop in mid-January, while the total number of infected patients taking up beds only began to fall towards the end of last month. Coronavirus pressure on NHS intensive care units only started to ease at the same time. 

The number of critically ill people being treated in beds peaked on January 22 at 5,502 but didn’t begin to drop consistently until February 6.

NHS England data show ICU occupancy rates have fallen by 23 per cent in a month, with 4,241 beds taken up on February 21, the most recent day figures are available for. 

But last weeks average of 4,440 occupied beds was 43 per cent higher than the four-year-average over the same week, with coronavirus still piling pressure on the health service.

MailOnline’s analysis of annual intensive care unit figures show the average number of beds occupied between February 15 and 21 during 2017 to 2020 was 3,087.

The NHS England figures don’t break down exactly how many of the beds were occupied by Covid patients — but the rise and fall coincides with England’s second wave.