Rising numbers of NHS staff off work due to Covid

By BBC News Last updated Dec 24, 2021 73

The number of NHS staff off-work because of Covid is rising across England and particularly high in London, official data shows.

Nearly 19,000 NHS staff were absent for Covid-related reasons on 19 December – up 54% on the previous week.

In London, the figure was almost 3,900 – more than double the number a week earlier.

Along with non Covid reasons this suggest around 5% of the NHS workforce in England was absent on 19 December.

The totals include staff at NHS acute trusts who were ill with Covid-19 or who were having to self-isolate.

NHS Providers’ chief executive, Chris Hopson, said this showed Omicron was having a “real-time impact on service”.

He added: “”The next few weeks will present a huge test for the NHS on many fronts – coping with Covid-19, handling emergencies, working on the backlog where possible, and delivering boosters.”

“We are once again ramping up to deal with the rise in Covid infections, and quite rightly staff are making every possible preparation for the uncertain challenges of omicron, including recruiting thousands of nurses and reservists.”

‘War footing’

How is the NHS in your area coping this winter?

The latest figures show the number of beds occupied in NHS hospitals remain high – with 81,880 out of 89,991 adult beds occupied in England on 19 December.

And ambulance handover delays have improved slightly – with around 20% of people waiting for more than 30 minutes to be handed over to accident and emergency in the week up to December 19, down from 23% the week before.

NHS medical director, Professor Stephen Powis said the NHS was on “war footing”.

He added: “Staff are taking the fight to omicron, by boosting hundreds of thousands of people each day, treating thousands of seriously-ill Covid patients and delivering urgent care for other conditions, all while seeing a worrying, high and rising increase in absence due to Covid.

“We are once again ramping up to deal with the rise in Covid infections, and quite rightly staff are making every possible preparation for the uncertain challenges of omicron, including recruiting thousands of nurses and reservists.”

To find out how the NHS in your area is coping, you can use our interactive tracker. It will tell you about waits in A&E as well as giving you an indication of how busy the wards are.

A modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection are required to view this interactive.

About the data

Ambulance queues

When patients arrive at hospital by ambulance they should be handed over within 15 minutes. This data shows the proportion of ambulance patients who waited 30 minutes or more, in the week shown. It comes from daily situation reports which are published weekly during the winter in England. As this is fast-turnaround data, the NHS says only minimal validation can be carried out but it is considered fit for purpose.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not publish ambulance queue data.

A&E waits

Patients at A&E should be seen within four hours of arrival. This data shows the proportion of patients attending A&E who waited longer than four hours to be treated, discharged or admitted.

This data is published monthly for England and Wales and weekly for Scotland. Northern Ireland publishes its data quarterly and Winter 2021 is not yet available.

Bed waits and occupancy

If a patient at A&E needs to be admitted, the wait from decision to admit to being given a bed on a ward is recorded in England. The bed waits figure is the proportion of patients admitted via A&E who waited longer than four hours for a ward bed.

In Wales, bed wait data is not published, so the figure shown is the occupancy level in general and acute beds. Scotland and Northern Ireland do not publish bed wait or bed occupancy data.

NHS trusts and boards

Data for England is show by NHS trust, where the trust includes at least one hospital with a Type 1 A&E department. Type 1 means a consultant-led 24 hour A&E service with full resuscitation facilities.

When you enter a postcode for a location in England you will be shown a list of NHS trusts in your area. They will not necessarily be in order of your closest hospital as some trusts have more than one hospital. Data for Wales and Scotland are shown by NHS board.

Comparative data from two years ago is shown where available. However, where trusts have merged there is no like-for-like comparison to show. Bed occupancy data in Wales only goes back to April 2020.

If you can’t see the lookup, click here

Meanwhile, the head of NHS Wales warned almost a fifth of NHS Wales’ staff may be off work at the peak of the Omicron wave.

Judith Paget said modelling suggested up to 17% of staff could be ill or self-isolating during January.

If this happens, she said retired healthcare staff and volunteers could be asked to assist with other essential services.