The union UNISON has warned the Government needs to listen to frontline NHS staff and provide funding and support to help deal with the "severe pressures" healthcare workers face.
And the union has warned that a "quick Omicron fix" is not good enough, with a top North East figure highlighting how staff are under severe strain which predates the Covid-19 pandemic.
Over the week to January 12, the union conducted a "snapshot" investigation of how staff were coping at 40 NHS trusts across the country - including in our region.
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The result "paints a worrying picture", UNISON said.
It said first-hand accounts highlighted how NHS bosses had been forced to "chase staff off sick to return early, directing those on wards to send patients home more quickly and asking exhausted employees to cancel annual leave, as well as taking on extra shifts too".
The union said NHS staff had suggested "these stopgap initiatives" were helping a little, but that "much more" support from central Government was necessary.
UNISON head of health Sara Gorton said: "Employers are using desperate measures to cope with desperate times. But stretching dwindling numbers every thinner cannot solve this staffing crisis.
"With the latest figures showing six million people awaiting treatment and thousands waiting at least 12 hours to be seen in A&E departments, the toll on staff of witnessing endless patient suffering cannot be underestimated.
"The Government might have been unable to predict the rampant spread of Omicron. But ministers were well aware of the endemic staffing shortages across the entire NHS and the intolerable pressures this created.
"The NHS has been running on empty for years. Never again must the pleas from staff, employers and unions for urgent action on staffing numbers be ignored."
The union's regional secretary Clare Williams added: "This pressure really is reflected across our region. What we know - and what we have been telling the Government - is that there are severe staffing pressures and a serious workforce crisis in the NHS.
"That's down to a number of factors that Covid and the winter have underlined, but staffing numbers were under pressure even before the pandemic."
The union figures are also urging the Government to reconsider its plan to bring in a vaccine mandate for NHS staff this April - saying though it "was very clear that vaccination was the best way" to tackle Covid-19, a mandate was not the right approach.
Ms Williams added that while some NHS bosses in our region had been vocal about the need for more support, there was a need for "system-wide" action from the Government.
This echoes hospital leaders at Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust who in November called for a "proper workforce plan" from the Government to help the NHS cope. Staff including chief exec Dame Jackie Daniel and clinical director Dr Chris Gibbins highlighted that the Government needed to do more than just give money to the NHS.
She added: "Staff have suffered with Covid and have spent so long under extreme pressure too. If you add the pandemic and the high sickness rates then the end result is we have services under such stress.
"The Government needs to listen to what people on the ground are saying and respond with more funding for the NHS and a workforce plan going forward.
"It can't just keep ignoring this. It's a systemic problem - it's not just that there are not enough staff."
Last week North East reps from t he British Medical Association shared similar concerns about the pressure frontline doctors were under - highlighting that the Government needed to more to ensure services were safe.
On Tuesday, the Times reported that Health Secretary Sajid Javid has plans to "reform" how NHS Trusts work with a scheme based on how academies work in the education sector.
This could see struggling NHS trusts forced to become "reform" trusts which would have greater autonomy, the Times reported.
The newspaper reported a Whitehall source had said: "Sajid’s reform agenda is all about driving up performance across the NHS. To achieve that we are going to apply some lessons from the academies programme.”
This comes as new Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) guidance has been released reducing how long people need to self-isolate if they test positive for Covid-19.
Now, if you receive two negative lateral flow test results on consecutive days, people will be able to leave isolation after five days. This is hoped to reduce the pressure on public services including the NHS due to staff absence.
In autumn 2021, the DHSC announced an extra £5.4bn injection of funding to help cope with the impact of Covid-19 - but in recent weeks many have called for more to be done.
Early in January a report from the House of Commons health and social care committee highlighted the staffing crisis too.
At the time, a DHSC spokesperson said: "We are committed to supporting hardworking staff to ensure people get the treatment they need." They also pointed to close to £6bn of funding to tackle backlogs - and plans for a £36bn investment over three years.
