Norfolk's public and health services under growing pressure
The Omicron variant is continuing to put pressure on our public services
Norfolk’s public and health services are grappling with staff absences caused by record-high Covid infections, as a county council official warns that social care “is under extreme pressure”.
With Covid cases now topping 100,000 across the UK every day for almost two weeks, the Cabinet Office has asked public sector leaders to prepare for “worst case scenarios” of 10pc, 20pc and 25pc absence rates.
Norfolk County Council’s director of people Sarah Shirtcliff said: “Our public-facing services such as libraries are running as advertised, but the social care system is under extreme pressure supporting hospitals.
Ms Shirtcliff urged “everyone to get their booster vaccination and to be cautious to minimise pressure on health and care.”
The county’s assistant chief fire officer, Scott Norman, said the emergency service currently had “a higher than usual number of both firefighters and non-operational staff” off sick with Covid-19.
He said however that “rigid mitigation measures” had meant the service was “able to maintain full operational duties, including fire crew availability for incidents across Norfolk”.
“We would remind the public that we remain available, but only to call 999 in a genuine emergency,” he added.
The county’s police force said however it was experiencing “no issues in relation to providing a normal service to the public”.
Norfolk and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group told us: “Health and care services in Norfolk and Waveney remain extremely busy and colleagues across the health and care system are working closely together to keep services running and to create extra capacity to deal with demand.
"Please use NHS services wisely and if you require medical help, contact NHS 111 first online or over the phone. Our NHS remains open and it is vitally important that if you have serious concerns to seek help and in a serious medical emergency, such as symptoms of a heart attack or stroke, to call 999.
"Getting your COVID-19 vaccination is the best way to protect yourself and reduce the risk of hospital admission as we move into January when respiratory infections often peak.
"Across the country we’re seeing infection rates rise and we are urging people to keep up the basics with thorough hand washing, wearing face coverings as per the national guidance and ventilating rooms as much as possible - this also helps protect people against other seasonal bugs such as norovirus and flu.
"We want to thank all our staff for going above and beyond during an extremely difficult and demanding time for the NHS.”
It comes as Trusts in the county, along with many others across the country, are on the highest alert level due to the pressure of Covid-19.
Staff absences have forced authorities across the UK to scale back bin collections, including Cheshire East, Birmingham, Chelmsford, Basingstoke and Greater Manchester’s Tameside borough.
But Norfolk’s district councils insisted they were not currently suffering any significant impact from reduced staff numbers.
A Norwich City Council spokeswoman said the authority was “not seeing any negative impacts on critical council services due to staff absences caused by Covid” but warned “this is a fast moving situation and case rates in Norwich – like the rest of the country – are high.
“We are doing everything possible to ensure local services won’t be disrupted but the situation is fluid.”
Great Yarmouth, Breckland and North Norfolk councils said they too had experienced no disruption to services.
Broadland, West Norfolk and South Norfolk councils – and the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, which provides Norfolk’s mental health services – were also approached for comment.