Covid-19, strikes, climate change and an ageing population are all contributing to "challenges unprecedented in NHS history", a hospital boss has warned.
Sir John Burn, chair of the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust, also singled out the impact of Long Covid as he laid out a series of factors facing his trust and the NHS more widely in a stark board report. Sir John said the task was to "maintain activity, standards and morale".
This comes as the trust sets out plans to reorganise its management structure, and is set against the backdrop of a number of further scheduled industrial walkouts in the NHS over the coming weeks. In a separate report, the trust's chief executive Dame Jackie Daniel set out the "painful toll" on staff when they're unable to provide the care they hope to.
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Sir John used his report to highlight how the continued pressure of Covid-19 and the "twindemic" which has seen flu and other respiratory illnesses also surge, the impact of Long Covid, strike action and staff shortages, an ageing population and climate change were all combining to create a never-before-seen strain on the health service.
Sir John said: "We face a conflation of challenges unprecedented in NHS history. The impact of the pandemic is still being felt: new Covid 19 infections combined with flu and other viruses, the effect of long Covid on population health, industrial action and staff shortages are all impacting our efforts to clear the backlog resulting from earlier treatment delays.
"Changing behaviours and a significant rise in the older population result in more emergency presentations while wider socioeconomic challenges cause pressure on primary care and social care which exaggerate the burden on secondary and tertiary care. Climate change, meanwhile, marches on, bringing with it global population shifts which will adversely affect all countries."
However, Sir John pointed to recent awards success - the hospital trust's work on sustainability was recognised with a gong in the Towards Net Zero category at the national Health Service Journal awards late last year - and said: "Our task as a leading teaching hospital is to maintain activity, standards and morale. We have much to celebrate and admire. Our staff continue to deliver despite the challenges and to support healthcare in the wider region."
Dame Jackie added in her corresponding report to the board that the pressures NHS staff are under were difficult for them cope with - explaining that through December, bed occupancy was "regularly exceeding 95%" and that attendances at the RVI's A&E was 27.2% up on December 2019.
She said this was exacerbated by "peaks of flu and Covid" that saw staff sickness surge.
"Every member of NHS staff wants to be delivering the best possible care for our patients and that is what I know all our staff try to do every day when they come to work," she said. "On top of the physical and emotional demands that are always involved in caring work, there is an additional and painful toll that is taken whenever pressures on the system mean that we cannot support patients in the way we would hope to."
Dame Jackie also outlined a change in organisational structure - from having 21 directorates to having eight new "clinical boards". She explained: "We know that staff cannot work harder than they are already – so our only route to deliver the further capacity we need for the future is to work better together, both within our organisation and with our partners."
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