'Lots of work' before NHS gets back to normal in Telford
Attempts to get health services back to full capacity will be “frustrated” and “constrained” by the supply of PPE and the need to deep-clean some equipment between patients, an NHS chief has warned.
David Evans, Telford and Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group's accountable officer warned the system won’t get back to its pre-coronavirus state for “quite a considerable time”.
Shropshire’s A&E departments have seen patient numbers halve during the pandemic period, and Mr Evans said it was “inevitable” some genuine emergency patients were put off from attending by the fear of contracting or spreading Covid-19.
Mr Evans told the borough’s Health and Wellbeing Board that “we want to get the messaging right” to make sure only patients who truly need its services come back, while others know what alternatives are available.
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In his report titled 'Covid-19: CCG Approach to Restoration and Recovery', he said: “All of this, of course, is reliant on the availability of personal and protective equipment for staff and carers across all sectors.
“Clearly there continue to be some challenges in supply at national, regional and local levels, and that is going to be one of the constricting factors, along with staff, on our ability to resource services.
“So, when I talk about restoration and recovery, we won’t necessarily be looking at, for some considerable time, getting services back to the same levels of activity as they were before.
“If you look at it in terms of MRI scanners, for example, they will now have to be fully cleaned between each patient to prevent cross-contamination and infection.
Target
“That seriously frustrates the capacity of diagnostics although we are looking at mobiles.”
He said Telford and Wrekin CCG will meet an England-wide target for essential services to be restored by Monday, but that capacity would be reduced because of those and other constraints.
Richard Overton, the deputy leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, pointed out that the fall in A&E attendance at the Princess Royal Hospital and Royal Shrewsbury Hospital was partly positive.
“Some people go to A&E who don’t need to,” he said.
“But there is also the negative that some people haven’t gone because they were scared of going, but needed to.
“How can we encourage those people that need to get healthcare if they are having heart attacks or strokes?”
Mr Evans said: “At times we were at least 50 per cent down in levels of activity and, you’re right, there were those two categories.”
He said plans were in place to continue encouraging non-emergency patients, who could be more appropriately assessed and cared for elsewhere, not to turn up at A&E.
Mr Evans added that some positive changes had been forced on the NHS by the coronavirus outbreak and the resulting social distancing measures and, where appropriate and useful, those would be maintained.
“I would never have thought we could have got all GP practice across Telford and Wrekin doing telephone triage during the space of time we managed to achieve that,” he said.
