A leading doctor said that the 'double whammy' of rising Covid-19 and flu cases is putting the NHS under mounting pressure.
The Greater Manchester GP, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Manchester Evening News that hospitals are "extremely busy" and struggling for beds. It comes after NHS bosses in our region urged patients to only call 999 or attend A&E in a 'life-threatening emergency.
He said: "Flu and Covid is increasing and that's infecting the staff as well, along with patients so that's a double whammy. It's not to the scale of the pandemic yet but it's having an effect."
Another doctor revealed "exhausted" staff are battling illness and has been struck by the number of "extremely sick" young flu patients who have needed ventilation.
The Manchester-based healthcare professional added: "There are still high rates of staff sickness and many emergency departments are overcrowded. As a result of crowded hospital wards, there are delays in discharging patients who have met clinical criteria for discharge but can’t leave because of lack of social care.
"The thing that strikes me is just how sick people are, elderly frail with multiple health conditions who then get flu and Covid or both and then they 'tip over' and decompensate. There area also some extremely sick young people with flu who have needed ventilation. They are so sick, it’s very hard, and staff are exhausted."
It comes as a leading health official warned that pressure on the NHS is now "equivalent" to that of the early stages of the pandemic.
Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of NHS Providers, said pressure is coming from numerous directions, including staff shortages, lack of investment, a worn-out workforce, backlog of operations and a continuation of Covid and flu cases.
'Same level of pressure as early stages of pandemic'
She told the PA news agency: "I think we are seeing equivalent levels of pressure, they are just manifesting in different ways.
"What we saw in terms of pressure during the pandemic was tens of thousands of people coming through hospital doors with a contagious disease that we didn’t know how to treat effectively.
"What we know now, and I think perhaps it’s a more challenging situation, is that we’ve still got that coming through the door but then we’ve also got the legacy of Covid, which is a worn-out workforce, we’ve got even higher levels of staff shortages and vacancies, we’re up to 133,000 across the NHS now.
"And we’ve got the imperative to try and make some gains on the waiting list, so there’s a real pressure there also to do more of that routine activity."
Meanwhile, a health chief urged the Government to declare a national NHS major incident. Dr Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine (SAM), said: “The current situation in urgent and emergency care is shocking.
"It is in a critical state for patients and it is an extremely difficult for healthcare staff who are unable to deliver the care they want to.
Newly published statistics show a surge in the number of flu patients in hospital in England has continued, with numbers rising 79 per cent in the last week."
An average of 3,746 people with flu were in hospital across the seven days to December 25, up week on week from 2,088, according to NHS England. The number was just 772 at the start of the month.
The Health Service Journal reported that a number of ambulance trusts across the country had told staff on Thursday (December 29) that oxygen suppliers were unable to fulfil orders and supplies will need to be "carefully" managed for the next few days.
NHS England said there was no shortage in supply of oxygen itself, but that it was seeing "significant" demand for portable oxygen cylinders.
'500 deaths a week due to delays'
As intense demand on the NHS continues, a senior doctor today (January 1) warned that up to 500 people could die every week due to delays in hospitals across the country.
Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told Times Radio that long waiting times were being linked with hundreds of unnecessary deaths.
He said: "If you look at the graphs, they all are going the wrong way and I think there needs to be a real reset. We need to be in a situation where we cannot just shrug our shoulders and say this winter was terrible, let’s do nothing until next winter.
"We need to increase our capacity within our hospitals, we need to make sure that there are alternative ways so that people aren’t all just funnelled into the ambulance service and emergency department. We cannot continue like this, it is unsafe and it is undignified."
The stark warning comes just days after it was revealed 149 patients rushed to hospital in ambulance were made to wait over an hour at Greater Manchester A&Es in just one day. And one in five ambulance patients in England waited more than an hour to be handed over to emergency care teams last week.
In Greater Manchester, on December 18, a total of 149 patients taken to hospital endured handover waits of more than an hour, according to statistics. The figures for the day are the latest available - with ongoing pressures being faced by hospitals likely to indicate the current figure would be higher.
On the day, 549 patients arrived at hospitals in Greater Manchester by ambulance. Of those, the data shows 85 suffered handover delays of between 30 minutes to an hour.
The figures for delays greater than an hour, however, are far higher - the 149 figure. Overall, the time lost to ambulance handover delays on the day was a total of 293 hours.
'Twindemic seeing huge rise in flu and covid'
NHS England's national medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis said the surge in demand was due to a rise in cases of both coronavirus and flu, which has been dubbed a "twindemic."
He added: "Sadly, these latest flu numbers show our fears of a 'twindemic' have been realised, with cases up seven-fold in just a month and the continued impact of Covid hitting staff hard, with related absences up almost 50 per cent on the end of November."
As Christmas pressure peaked last week, health bosses in Greater Manchester issued an urgent plea for people to only call 999 or attend A&E in an 'life-threatening' emergency.
In a stark message on Wednesday evening (December 28), they wrote: "Today has been beyond anything we have experienced before. At least ten ambulances were pictured waiting outside Royal Bolton Hospitals' busy A&E department earlier in the evening.
NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care tweeted: "The first day back after the Christmas break is always busy for NHS services - today has been beyond anything we have experienced before.
"We are making an urgent plea to the public in Greater Manchester to only call 999 or attend A&E if their condition is a life threatening emergency."
Amid reported A&E waits of 13 hours in Greater Manchester, bosses said staff sickness and an 'increased prevalence of flu' had led to long delays both for patients to be seen in hospitals and for ambulances to attend people's homes.
'People will be dying unnecessarily'
Amid the gridlock Manchester Evening News readers have been sharing their experiences of trying to access care over Christmas. Writing on the M.E.N. Facebook page on Wednesday 28 December, Belinda Blanshard said: "Calling 111 is not great either... we have waited from 5.40 this morning till just to get a call back!
"Appointment still two hours away! The demand is too high for the service to cope and A&E is even worse! People will be dying unnecessarily something needs to happen and fast! They were saying they have not long since cleared all yesterday's calls!!!!"
Carl Cleaver wrote: "My son is really feeling unwell and has been for a number of weeks but no GP appointments. Called 111 this morning at 8am after attempting to call GP after he has worsened.
"Got through after 40 minutes and told we had a slot to see emergency pharmacist at 10am. Went there and pharmacist agreed he needs to see a doctor so referred him to out of hours emergency GP told us to go home and await a call which maybe a few hours.
"Just got a call at around 3.40pm to say he has been referred but no space and no idea how long it will be before he can be seen and just to wait for a phone call which maybe tonight it maybe tomorrow or who knows when."
And as hospital trusts across the country began declaring critical incidents last week, a leaked memo to staff at the Northern Care Alliance (NCA) confirmed the trust was its 'highest level of internal escalation.'
The NHS trust runs four hospitals across Greater Manchester, including Salford Royal, Royal Oldham Hospital, Fairfield General Hospital and Rochdale Infirmary.
The email, which was first leaked to The Sunday Times and shared with the Manchester Evening News on Thursday (December 29), tells staff at the trust, which runs four hospitals and community services within Salford, Oldham, Bury and Rochdale, that the NCA is at the 'highest level of internal escalation' and 'managing our situation as a Business Continuity Incident'.
'The system is really intense'
Speaking to the M.E.N last week, Mandy Philbin, chief nurse for NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care, warned the health and care system is currently 'really intense.'
"The system is really intense at the moment," Ms Philbin said. "Your care will be managed if you need to see health or social care services, but what's difficult is the amount of time that people are actually waiting, the amount of people that are actually going into A&E."
"We've got a lot more patients attending A&E, attending GP practices," said Ms Philbin. "We've got patients in hospital waiting for social care, we've got crisis around workforce staffing which can be short-term issues as well - nurses and doctors like anyone else will get chest infections, will get colds."
Hospitals usually expect the pressure to increase in January, but the system is already stretched this month. Ms Philbin insists that 'patient flow' through hospital will be crucial and that health and social care teams working together will hep that - but she admits 'it's going to be really difficult' next month.Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership have been approached for further comment.
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