Each week, we provide a snapshot of our reality on our website. It shows, at a glance, the impact of Covid-19 on our hospitals. As Magda Smith, our Chief Medical Officer, put it so soberly at a virtual meeting with our MPs last week, “we all want this to peak; we’re not there yet”.  

The data on our website are facts with which to fight the fantasy of the Covid deniers. But numbers alone don’t drive home the human cost. Every figure represents a grandparent, parent, sibling, relative, neighbour. 

And there’s a human cost for our staff. They’re stressed, anxious, exhausted. They’re seeing more younger Covid patients than they did during the first wave. This isn’t an illness that just afflicts the elderly. Some of these very sick patients have children who are toddlers. Our frontline staff have friends who’ve been unwell and friends who have died. 

The virus doesn’t discriminate. At a virtual meeting of our senior doctors, one of them, who had been ill, told his colleagues, “I thought I was going to die at one point”. It is humbling and remarkable that they returned to the frontline after recovering.

I am in awe of what our staff are achieving during a pandemic that is having such a devastating impact on our lives. At extraordinary speed, to stay one step ahead of the virus, they are introducing innovative changes. And it is all of our staff who are going above and beyond. 

When we were under pressure over our oxygen supply, as our oxygen dependent Covid patient numbers continued to rise, it was clinical staff working alongside finance, operations, security and estates colleagues who delivered a solution.

We have increased our critical care capacity from a baseline in ‘normal times’ of some 35 beds to around 80 beds. I can assure you this is no mean feat. And we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that we are also treating up to 60 seriously ill Covid patients with non-invasive ventilation on general wards across our hospitals – something we didn’t do during the first wave.

We’ve also increased the number of our other beds (known as general and acute) by 80, with the potential to add a further 20. We have done this by re-purposing wards and using areas that had been mothballed. 

The extra beds are, of course, useless without the staff. We’ve redeployed more than 300 nurses and other healthcare staff into critical care and other wards. Where possible, we’ve tried to keep people working alongside a team they’re familiar with – our staff told us after the first wave that this was one way that any change to their working practice could be made more manageable.

At King George Hospital (KGH) a frailty unit was converted into an Oxygen Receiving Unit (for very sick Covid patients) over the four-day holiday weekend. At Queen’s Hospital we’re working with the London Ambulance Service to reduce delays when patients are handed over to us. 

None of this has been straightforward and it has taken its toll on my colleagues. We are stretching them and there’s a limit to how far someone can be stretched. We are constantly reviewing what we can do to look after their wellbeing. 

Given all of this pressure, it is very gratifying to be part of the NHS effort to administer the vaccines. Once again, it has been heartening to see so many different teams pull together to make a success of our vaccination hub at Queen’s. One of our priorities is to ensure our staff are jabbed. 

The latest lockdown will, hopefully, lead to a noticeable reduction in the number of Covid patients being admitted to our hospitals.  

I am grateful for all I know you are doing to spread the message about the vital importance of residents in our three London boroughs and in Essex abiding by the lockdown restrictions. 

I would like to close with a heartfelt thanks to our GPs and to two in particular, Anil Mehta and Jagan John who have been helping out on our wards. Others from primary care are following their example. Their support is invaluable, and the benefits of such closer working will improve patient care in the future. 

I hope you have a good and productive week.

Best wishes.

Tony Chambers
Chief Executive