Covid-19: High rates in hospitals have hampered elective care recovery, says NHS chief

The NHS in England significantly underestimated the continuing impact of covid-19 on hospital bed capacity this year, its chief executive has said. Amanda Pritchard said that the ongoing high numbers of patients with covid in hospitals had hindered efforts to tackle the backlog of elective care that had built up during the pandemic.“We’ve been completely wrong on the assumptions about covid,” Pritchard told MPs on the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee on 28 November. “Having made, I think, some ambitious assumptions that the level of covid would be low . . . across the UK, we’ve never had less than 5000 patients in hospitals at any one time this year. Covid has been much higher than expected, and the consequences of that are not just beds with patients in, it’s the impact on sickness of staff.”Pritchard conceded that the NHS was currently behind trajectory on its commitment to increase…
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