'New restrictions may come' - Medical director's response as Covid patients in hospital on the Fylde coast nearly double in a week

There are now 82 patients with Covid-19 in hospital on the Fylde coast, up from 44 last week and just six three weeks ago.

Seventy-one are on the wards at Blackpool Victoria Hospital, five are in the Vic's intensive care unit, and six are in Clifton Hospital in St Annes.

Nine Covid-related deaths have also been recorded bringing total at the hospital to 260.

Dr Jim Gardner, the hospitals' medical director, said the numbers are "pretty much a doubling in a week" and described them as "very concerning".

He said: "The hospital is very, very busy across the board with all manner of clinical conditions but it's also seeing a progressive rise in our Covid numbers."

Speaking during his weekly coronavirus briefing, Dr Gardner said: "Now we're trying to maintain our clinical programme as much as possible with our elective surgery, general surgery, cancer work orthopaedic, CMT, urology and so on but clearly, as we get busier that other work is going to come under pressure.

"So we're anxious, of course, to keep as much of our general work going as possible, and the message that sits behind that is that if you're worried about any medical condition we are still managing everything in that context, and of course your GP surgeries are still available to contact and if you've got urgent inquiries then I'd recommend that you use the NHS 111 system.

"We're showing 260 Covid-related deaths, so that's deaths within 28 days of Covid positive status, that's an increase of nine on the data that we showed last week."

Dr Gardner added that the messages around protecting patients, staff and visitors are as important as ever and admitted new restrictions maybe introduced.

He said: "The guidance from the Government is clear and of course we may well see new restrictions coming in on the back of our data.

"We've seen the local population data progressively rise to in the region of 200 cases per hundred thousand, and we can see that the subset of that data shows that at least 20 per cent of those positive swabs, are in the over-60 age group and since we know that age in itself is a risk factor for becoming poorly with Covid it's really important to acknowledge that we're seeing Covid positivity across the age ranges, it is not just a function of a younger population who are moving out and about."

Visiting restrictions will remain in place in order to prevent the spread of the virus.

Dr Gardner said: "As the numbers have maintained very high and the hospital is under enormous pressure, we've had to maintain those visiting restrictions that I've talked about before. We don't like doing that, we're very uncomfortable about the fact that we're keeping loved ones from visiting, but we're doing that in the interests of patient safety and organisational safety

The importance of getting a flu jab ahead of the winter period was also emphasised.

Dr Gardner said: "I've said before that now is the perfect time to get a flu jab if you're in the at risk criteria. There is no circulating influenza at the moment and if we can keep on top of that condition that puts the whole population in a much safer position to move into winter".

The hospital is currently undergoing a Covid-19 vaccination study in partnership with a resort GP surgery and Dr Gardner asked that if residents are interested in being part of the vaccine study,called Novavax, they can enquire about details on the hospital's website at www.bfwh.nhs.uk.