Derriford critical state is PM's fault claims councillor

500 staff are off because of covid

A Plymouth councillor and former midwife has said it is Boris Johnson’s fault that University Hospitals Plymouth has declared a critical incident. 

On Tuesday, chief operating officer at UHP NHS Trust, Jo Beer, announced they were operating in an ‘internal critical incident.’ 

High pressure on urgent care services and increasing demand for covid beds were blamed for the decision, along with just under 500 staff being absent for covid-related reasons.

The trust also said there were 99 covid positive patients across Derriford and three community hospitals.

Cllr Mary Aspinall, (Lab, Sutton and Mount Gould) who is the party’s health spokesperson, said management at the trust will have had no choice. 

“This is hugely worrying news for people in Plymouth,” she said.

“We know how hard the entire UHP team is, and has been, working throughout the pandemic and I would like to extend my personal thanks to them.

“People will naturally be concerned that this critical incident has been declared however, with almost 500 staff absent because of covid, this was the only safe course of action UHP could take.”

But Cllr Aspinall added that the government bares responsibility for the situation.

“It shows exactly how the approach of Boris Johnson, Sajid Javid and the Conservative government to tackling covid-19 is failing us all yet again,” she said.

“Their continued inability to get a grip on this virus is having extremely worrying consequences.

“We need to see urgent action from the health secretary to address the crisis we are facing in our city.

“It also underlines how this is still a highly contagious illness which continues to derail normal life and we all have a responsibility to do our bit to contain it, whether that is wearing masks as required in shops and on public transport or getting vaccinated whether it’s your first, second or your booster.”

Earlier Ms Beer explained that the move was taken in order to manage the situation in the best possible way. “We don’t want people to be alarmed by this,” she said. 

“We took the decision to escalate to the highest level of internal incident because this allows us to be able to take additional steps to maintain safe services for our patients and help us cope with the growing pressures.

But she insisted that UHP was still functioning and available for people who need treatment.  

She added: “As the major trauma centre and specialist centre for the South West, at Derriford Hospital, we receive some of the most acutely unwell patients by air and road ambulance. 

“We are running at extremely high levels of occupancy and like a number of other hospitals across the country, we are seeing huge rises in demands for our services at the moment. 

“Attendances in our emergency department are high; there are ongoing challenges in discharging patients who are well enough to leave hospital, and we are seeing an increase in staff sickness – all of which leads to longer waits than we would like for patients to be seen and admitted.

“We are here to help in an emergency, but we would ask people to consider all options when accessing urgent care, such as accessing NHS 111 as a first point of call. We encourage the public to get vaccinated against covid-19 and have a flu jab if eligible.”

The recent surge in the Omicron variant of covid-19 cases has put considerable pressure on the NHS as admissions rise and staff numbers fall. 

UHP is one of 24 NHS trusts in England to have declared a critical incident.

Despite the number of hospital admissions rising, health secretary Sajid Javid said the Omicron wave has not seen the same sort of spike in people being admitted to critical care as other variants.