NHS chief warns of ‘rising pressure’ as top psychiatrist issues plea for mental health funding
A UK National Health Service chief has warned about a “rise in pressure” hospital services are experiencing from COVID-19 patients, with the country’s leading psychiatrist issuing a plea for funding to deal with the disease’s “profound” and long-term impact on mental health.
Every day, paramedics in London are receiving around 8,000 call-outs as the number of hospital patients neared the April peak, and Boxing Day was described as one of London Ambulance Service's "busiest ever days".
"We're seeing a real rise in the pressure for hospital services, but also other types of NHS services as well ... ambulance trusts in particular are coming under extreme pressure, as are community and mental health services," Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, told the BBC.
His remarks came ahead of a warning from the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists that the pandemic presents the greatest threat to mental health in the country since the Second World War.
The pandemic will have "a profound effect on mental health" and funding will be needed to cope with its “long-term consequences”, Dr. Adrian James told The Guardian.
Meanwhile, NHS England has ordered hospitals to free up every possible bed for the increasing number of COVID patients, warning that the entire health service will need to stay on its highest state of alert until at least the end of March.
“As we head into the New Year,” Cordery said the pressure is increasing on NHS services, “particularly across London and the south-east.”
Health service chiefs wrote a letter to NHS care providers on 23 December, saying, “With Covid-19 inpatient numbers rising in almost all parts of the country, and the new risk presented by the variant strain of the virus, you should continue to plan on the basis that we will remain in a level four incident for at least the rest of this financial year and NHS trusts should continue to safely mobilize all of the available surge capacity over the coming weeks.”
Over 2,288,000 people have tested positive for the COVID-19 in the UK, while more than 70,700 have died.
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