the damage being done to many hospital
services in england in the wake of the
pandemic
is exposed by new nhs figures more than
four million patients are now waiting
for routine surgery and treatments
nearly half have been waiting for longer
than the official target of 18 weeks
and doctors are warning that a second
wave of the pandemic especially during
the winter months
could make things even worse in fact
more than 110
000 people in england have been waiting
for treatment for more than a year
that's the highest figure
for 12 years more than 20 000 cancer
patients
did start treatment in august but that's
a reduction
of 5 000 on the same period last year
and hospital admissions for covid
are still rising and they've doubled in
the past two weeks across england
our health editor hugh pim reports from
a hospital in bournemouth
which is preparing for the challenges
ahead
eight in the morning and the pressure's
already on at the royal bournemouth
hospital
um okay next patient any idea people are
staying away from a
e is a distant memory she has
regularly self-harmed over the last
couple of years all the bays filled up
overnight
now comes the staff hand over so she is
a 24 year old lady
again known to the mental health team
who had crisis last night
irrespective of kovid hospitals like
this are facing up to the build-up
of the usual winter pressures here
they've seen some of their busiest ever
days in the emergency department
dr farhad islam is a senior consultant
here
he's seen an increase in patients
needing mental health crisis care
it might be a call for help might be a
psychiatric
problem might be a self-harm patient a
person
that's got mental problems mental health
problems
so um you know we're seeing the whole
array of patients but
in amongst that the the rate of covert
is
increasing kofi case numbers are
relatively low in the local area
so i think the goal today was to try and
clear another bay if possible but at
this meeting they need to work out how
to make space
while protecting other patients we do
need to get another bay empty i
completely agree
and we're still seeing numbers of
patients come in with non-covered
related conditions
but we've got a small proportion of
patients with covid and we
um are unable to mix those pathways so
we need to find a way to
to do that safely so this is our
intensive care unit
that we have ready to use for the second
surgery
at the peak there were 20 patients in
intensive care here
half with kovid they've got room for
more if needed
so we're all still fairly raw from last
time we're very used to having family
members on the intensive care unit and
suddenly be told that we can't see
those family members and they can't see
all the work that goes into helping
their loved ones
was very difficult for the staff and
that anticipation of having
to go back to that is quite traumatizing
for critical care staff
so can you just uh take me through what
we're doing uh yeah so we're actually
going to be doing a double ward refa
video which is the first time we've done
this
elsewhere they're preparing for the
usual winter challenges
creating a frailty unit to help the
recovery of elderly patients
and their safe return home so
you've been seen by our nursing team and
you've been seen by our surgical team
some patients like christopher are
coming back in for non-urgent operations
i'm having
um destructive surgery september
christopher's ankle operation was
postponed in march
he's pleased it's now about to be done
though the weight's been difficult
quite a lot of pain um i've got quite a
lot of heavy dose painkillers
um it's difficult to walk really because
i'm putting a lot more weight on my
other leg
yeah pretty tricky i asked the chief
executive how they were tackling the
backlog of
operations put off because of covid19
we've been going through all the long
waiters and really trying hard to get
people who've been waiting
longer it's none of us want that for our
friends and family
and none of our clinicians want that
everybody wants to treat patients we
know how awful it is when people have to
wait a long time
so it's a top priority during the first
surge much of their focus was on the
sickest covid patients
but now there are other worries as well
if we see
a flu season if we see covert rising
and how we balance that with keeping all
the other
patients who need to be treated in
hospital coming through in a timely way
and that that's going to be the biggest
challenge
it'll be tough for staff some still
exhausted from their efforts
earlier in the year but they all want
people to know they're there and ready
to help
patients whatever their needs
cupim bbc news bournemouth
so let's take a look then at the
official figures and they show a
significant rise
in new infections 17 540
were recorded in the latest 24-hour
period
and that is up from just over 14 000
yesterday
it means the average number of new cases
reported per day in the past week is 14
520. hospital admissions as we said have
jumped significantly on average 528
people were being admitted
every day over the past week that number
does not include scotland
77 deaths have been reported of people
who died within 28 days
of a positive covid19 test and it means
on average in the past week
56 deaths were announced every day which
takes the total number of deaths
so far across the uk to 42
592. so now that we've seen those
figures let's talk to our health
correspondent
lauren moss we mentioned the new cases
lauren and of course this issue about
rising admissions so let's take stock
and
what's the picture tonight well hospital
admissions if we look at those they're
an important indicator the scale of the
pandemic because they show really how
many people are seriously
unwell with coronavirus and if we take
just england alone
more than 500 patients were admitted to
hospital
on tuesday now approximately 3 000 are
being treated
in total but to put that into context at
the peak of the pandemic
there are about 3 000 new patients being
admitted every single day
and the numbers are varying across the
country the northwest the northeast and
yorkshire and the midlands have greater
numbers in hospital compared to say
london
and the south west for example and today
we also got the latest figures for test
and trace in england so these figures
are up to the week of the 30th of
september and one of the important
things to look out here for here is that
the test turnaround times and we have a
graph that we can
show you now which will show that by
july when we look at those figures as
they come out it show
when people are going in person to get
their tests so that's going to a test
center the test turnaround times
uh in july we're around 24 hours for
those results coming back but over the
last
six weeks they've they've slowly
declined and in fact the latest figures
show that just a quarter
were returned within 24 hours and 24
hours is the target
and time is critical with this to limit
the spread of the virus and also
to contact those who potentially may
also have it and nhs representatives
are saying that both of these are big
issues right now okay lauren
once again many thanks lauren moss there
are health correspondents