Hospitals are under “extreme pressure,” warned the NHS England chief executive, with a coronavirus patient admitted “every 30 seconds” as the Foreign Secretary said the government plans to offer a first vaccination to the entire population. UK adult until September.
Sir Simon Stevens said health care has never been more precarious.
Speaking to BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, he said: “The facts are very clear and I will not ease them: hospitals are under extreme pressure and employees are under extreme pressure.
“Since Christmas Day, we’ve seen another 15,000 increase in the number of patients admitted to hospitals across England. This is the equivalent of filling 30 hospitals with coronavirus patients.
“Surprisingly, every 30 seconds across England, another patient is admitted to the hospital with coronavirus.”
The pressure on the NHS meant that three out of four ambulance workers were at the “breaking point”, suffering from low morale and demanding better protective equipment, a new study by the GMB union showed.
“In 24 years in the ambulance service, I have never seen employees sitting at the station at the start of their shift so afraid (almost to tears) of going out in an ambulance,” said one response.
National GMB officer Rachel Harrison said: “This cannot go on – something has to give way.
“The ambulance team falls ill en masse as the service collapses around them, despite their heroic efforts.”
“A massive 93 percent calls for better protection. The PPE they receive is simply not suitable for the purpose, and it is an important factor in why the situation is so desperate. “
Another 38,598 laboratory-confirmed coronavirus cases were reported on Sunday, and 671 deaths in 28 days after a positive test.
Dominic Raab told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show this general vaccination can be completed earlier if there is the capacity to do so.
But government sources said reports from a private target at the end of June to bring a vaccine against everyone under 18 were “speculative”.
Previously, the government has only committed to offering a first dose of the vaccine by mid-February to all people over 70, residents of nursing homes, health professionals and people with serious health problems.
But the chancellor told Marr: “The plan is to vaccinate the first 15 million most vulnerable people with the first dose by mid-February.
“We then want to get another 17 million in early spring. At that point, we will have 99% of those most at risk of dying from coronavirus administered with a vaccine.
“To the entire adult population that we want to receive a first injection until September.
“This is the script. We think we have the ability to deliver it.
“Obviously, if it can be done faster than that, then it’s a bonus. The number one thing now is to protect this roadmap and implementation and protect the NHS, given the new variants that we have seen. “
Sir Simon told Marr that the health service is now vaccinating at a rate of “140 jabs per minute” and will start testing vaccinations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in some hospitals for the next 10 days.
Sir Simon said he expects the blockade to be eased gradually around spring and summer.
He said: “It won’t be the case that on Valentine’s Day, with a jump, we are free.
“Likewise, I don’t think we will have to wait until autumn. I think somewhere between those two. “
But he warned that this prediction is subject to uncertainty around new variants of the coronavirus – particularly any that show signs of resistance to available vaccines.
Raab said the government hopes to start easing blocking restrictions as early as March, but said the measures would be eased gradually, rather than withdrawn overnight in a “big bang”.
He told Sky News Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “What we want to do is get out of those national blocks as soon as possible.
“The roadmap I described is that in early spring, with luck in March, we will be in a position to make those decisions.
“I think it is right to say that we will not do everything in one big bang. As we end the national blockade, I think we will end up changing the layered approach.
“We want to make sure that we can do this safely. But again, we have to, at this point, really focus on protecting the NHS and launching the vaccine. If we do these two things, we will arrive at a much better place in early spring. “
More than 3.5 million people in the UK have already received their first dose of a vaccine, and about 324,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines have been administered within 24 hours.
The main epidemiologist, Professor Azra Ghani, said that a combination of low case numbers and vaccination of the most vulnerable would be needed before the restrictions could be eased.
She told Sky: “We really want to go back to where we were in the summer, with relatively low case numbers compared to now, so that we can really test, track and reduce future infections.
“At the same time, of course, we are launching a vaccine; this is something we didn’t have until now and the vaccine launch is going very well.
“I hope it protects those who are most vulnerable to the serious consequences of this disease.
“We need to find a balance between these two things before we start to lift restrictions and it is very difficult to say exactly when it will happen.”