A new report reveals York Hospital is treating more Covid-19 patients than at any stage since the pandemic began.
At 14 March, there were 167 coronavirus patients in the hospital. The previous peak was 157 on 19 January 2021.
The figure was revealed in a report to the City of York Outbreak Management Advisory Board which meets tomorrow (Wednesday).
The York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust says in the report: “Managing these high numbers of patients means that hospital services remain under pressure.
“We continue to work with national infection prevention and control guidelines which require testing of all patients on admission, social distancing, PPE and other measures.
See all the latest coronavirus figures for York and North Yorkshire here
“This is continuing to cause major pressure on our inpatient capacity, and the flow of patients from the emergency departments through to leaving hospital is hindered significantly, particularly as we are trying as best we can to deliver planned care at the same time.
“We are working hard to tackle the backlog of patients needing planned treatment as well as emergency cases, but these measures further restrict our ability to carry out pre-pandemic levels of activity.”
Some routine elective surgery has been cancelled “in response to increased demand for beds”.
The hospital trust added: “We are continuing to prioritise emergency urgent and cancer patients so that we manage those patients with the greatest clinical need.
“Despite the ongoing pressures, we continue to make progress in reducing the number of ‘long wait’ patients.”
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