UK: Britain gripped by worst flu outbreak since 2000

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Britain gripped by worst flu outbreak since 2000

Britain is in the grip of the worst flu outbreak for eight years, with

emergency services fearing they will be " swamped " by calls when GP surgeries

close for Christmas.

By Donnelly, Health Correspondent

Last Updated: 1:54PM GMT 20 Dec 2008

This week’s official flu figures are expected to show a further surge in the

number of people infected.

With most GPs surgeries shut for four days over the Christmas period,

experts said the remaining medical services would become stretched to

breaking point by the weekend.

Accident and Emergency doctors said the chaos in their departments was

already reminiscent of scenes from the last big NHS winter crisis, at the

turn of the millenium, when crematoriums were forced to work around the

clock to cope with the 22,000 people who died.

The latest figures show the number of flu infections running at 40 per 100

000 - the highest level at this point in the year since the winter of 2000-1

when flu rates went on to reach epidemic proportions.

Dozens of hospitals have closed wards or stopped admitting emergency

patients as they battle with the rising number of admissions linked to flu

and the vomiting bug norovirus. Record numbers of 999 calls have left

emergency services struggling to cope, with ambulances queuing outside

hospitals who are unable to take patients quickly enough.

Heyworth, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said Accident

and Emergency departments and ambulance services were already overstretched,

with patients facing long waits in ambulances and on trolleys.

“The system simply does not have enough capacity to cope with the pressure

it is under, and we expect this to keep getting worse over Christmas, and

then over the next three to four weeks,” he said.

The A & E consultant at Southampton General Hospital said: “Already we have

got scenes where patients are waiting hours in A & E, or on trolleys in

corridors because there are not enough beds to admit them. Outside the

hospitals, ambulances are backed up, and can’t unload patients because the

departments aren’t able to cope with them.

“The ambulance service and A & E departments are already inundated with

patients and we fear we will soon be swamped,” he added.

Mr Heyworth described current pressures as “very reminiscent” of the crisis

in the NHS over the millenium.

“What is really frustrating about this, is that these pressures are

predictable,” he said. “The reason the service struggles to cope is because

bed numbers have been cut to a minimum”.

After the 1999/2000 winter crisis, the Government pledged to increase the

number of hospital beds by 7,000. In fact, the number of beds has fallen by

13,000 since then.

Meanwhile, hospitals are continuing to carry out thousands of operations in

a desperate attempt to meet a Government deadline at the end of this month.

The British Medical Association said “inflexible targets” which mean

patients must be treated within 18 weeks of referral, by the end of this

month, meant hospitals had failed to create enough slack in the system to

cope with the growing crisis.

Jim Wardrope, an A & E consultant at Sheffield Northern General Hospital,

said: “We are currently at a stage where we have severe and sustined

pressures and we are really worried about the four day weekend around

Christmas. Some places will run some extra services out of hours, but the

reality is we do not have a national plan to deal with this.”

The national director for the ambulance service has already begged the

public not to call 999 or visit A & E unless they have a genuine emergency,

urging people to call NHS Direct, visit their pharmacy or try a walk-in

centre if they need advice.

Ambulance staff said changes to the running of GP services, which mean most

surgeries no longer responded to calls in the evenings and weekends, with

the work “outsourced” to private companies, had left the public confused

about who to contact if they needed to see a doctor when their local surgery

was shut.

Sam Oestreicher, UNISON National Officer for Ambulance workers, said: “The

four day weekend is a real concern; a lot of people don’t know how to access

care when their GP surgery is shut, but the one number they do know is 999,

so it is very hard to keep the pressure off the ambulances”.

On Thursday the health secretary Alan insisted that the increase in

sickness was “pressure we can cope with.”

He was responding to comments from Bradley, the national director of

ambulance services, who told The Daily Telegraph that the emergency system

was “struggling to cope” with demand.

Latest figures show that the London Ambulance Service, where he is chief

executive, experienced its busiest week in its history, with more than 20

000 calls in the week ending last Sunday, while calls in the West Midlands

rose by 30 per cent, compared with the same period last year.

St ’s Hospital in London, Leighton Hospital in Cheshire, and Norfolk

and Norwich Hospital have all stopped receiving emergency patients as

pressures mounted over the past fortnight, due to rising emergencies and

outbreaks of the vomiting bug.

Dozens more hospitals have closed wards and cancelled scheduled operations.