Hotels May be used to Treat NHS Patients after Covid-19 Spike Causes Overwhelmed Hospital Wards

Health secretary Matt Hancock has proposed that thousands of NHS patients may have to give up their beds following the recent covid-19 outbreak.

Hospitals are currently overwhelmed after the amount of Covid-19 patients has reached a higher spike than during the previous crisis in March, leaving little room for the rising patients to receive treatment.

Health secretary Hancock has said that they have to ‘look at all options’. The NHS are looking into plans to move patients under less risk either back to their own homes or Hotels to relieve pressure on health care workers. Mr Hancock has said that “In some cases, people need step-down care, they don't actually need to be in a hospital bed”.

Hancock has also noted that this is not a ‘concrete proposal’ an officials are waiting for a final decision to be made relevant to the present Coronavirus situation. As it stands, over 35,000 Coronavirus patients are being treated in hospitals across the UK, with medical staff crying out for help due to the shortages in Oxygen supplies they have available to treat the sheer number of patients.

The NHS Nightingale hospital in London has also started to take in patients to try and relieve some of the pressure, however more is still needed to be done.

The government is currently ‘on track’ to dish out the 15 million doses of the Coronavirus vaccine to the most vulnerable citizens across the UK by the proposed 15th February deadline, with hopes this will be the turning point where we fall into a decline in Coronavirus cases.