Leeds COVID hospital admissions higher than April as Tier 3 talks continue

Leeds Hospital Trust has said cases in their hospitals are now higher than at the peak during mid-April. There are now 22 patients in intensive care and over the next 48 hours they expect this will increase.

The majority of admissions over the weekend has been older people with respiratory conditions, with he infection rate for over-59s increasing from 165 per 100,000 last Saturday to 269 per 100,000.

As a result of the spike, some planned operations have been postponed and only essential operations are going ahead in most cases.

The trust said they are "currently working very hard to ensure they treat as many patients as possible" - while ensuring they provide a safe hospital environment, but the pressure on beds has become "far greater than in the first wave"

Well it's as talks about moving the region into Tier 3 are ongoing after local leaders spoke to government ministers this afternoon (27 October).

West Yorkshire leaders have put forward proposals to strengthen community engagement, test and trace, and supporting the vulnerable while protecting jobs and livelihoods and talks will continue tomorrow.

And according to the PA news agency, staff at Leeds General Infirmary and St James's University Hospital have been told the growing number of admissions mean it is "looking even more likely" Leeds will be moved into Tier 3 of coronavirus restrictions.

In a statement, Leeds Teaching Hospitals said: "We have begun a rolling programme of theatre closures to increase critical care capacity.

We expect this to continue throughout the week, which means some difficult decisions as we prioritise cases of higher urgency. We are prioritising urgent treatments, including cancer operations.

Currently, we have around 1800 inpatient beds in our two main hospitals, St James’s and Leeds General Infirmary, (including critical care beds) supporting care for two groups of inpatients:

• acute/emergency referrals or patients admitted through A&E, including COVID-19 patients; and

• planned admissions for scheduled operations or procedures.

"We make hundreds of clinical decisions daily, on a case by case basis, about how beds are allocated in order to balance emergency care demand, including COVID, against our need to treat patients waiting for scheduled operations

"We are working with our partners in health and social care to discharge people who are medically fit to leave hospital

"We test every patient for COVID-19 and those patients who test positive are treated separately from those who test negative.

"The health and wellbeing of our staff is of utmost importance and we continue to support them with ongoing advice, counselling awareness and referral, and keeping them informed with updates across our internal communications channels. We are offering daily flu vaccination clinics to protect the health of our staff.

"Our message to patients and the people of Leeds is that we would encourage them to use health services when they need them. Advice on the right service to use is available via NHS 111 online or by telephone.

"We support the messages from the local authority asking people not to mix with others unnecessarily and reduce social contact, where possible. We ask that people do this to protect NHS staff so that we can care for others."