A&E units likened to a ‘war zone’ by NHS staff

Senior staff at a London hospital has warned the Guardian newspaper that they expect beds in its intensive care unit to be full by the end of the month, with one source describing its A&E unit as ‘like a war zone’.

Tom Dolphin, a consultant anaesthetist and spokesperson for the British Medical Association, said that some hospitals in London, such as Northwick Park, which was forced to declare a ‘critical incident’ last week after running out of critical care beds, are already struggling with the number of patients.

With NHS hospitals fast approaching full capacity because of the coronavirus outbreak, Dolphin warned that the situation will increasingly force doctors to make tough decisions about which patients to treat. Because of limited resources, hospitals are probably going to have to ‘prioritise between the people who are going to benefit for it as well’.

He told PA Media: “Like any epidemic, there are hotspots. Some hospitals have had to transfer patients out to other intensive care units. We’re going to get to the point where we are really running out of capacity and that transfer ability is going to be difficult to do anyway because nowhere else will have anywhere either.”

Staff at the Royal London hospital in east London told the Guardian that the number of patients there is doubling every five days and will exhaust the current capacity in nine days’ time.

A source at the Royal London said: “It already feels like a war zone. You cannot go into A&E because it is full of suspected Covid-19 patients. Doctors are having to take decisions about who to treat and who to abandon already. Operations are being cancelled, and we are nowhere near the height of the crisis.”