England will have no further Covid restrictions until after the New Year.

My daughter is a nurse in a major city hospital. They currently are experiencing crippling staff absences due to covid. The wards are full. It’s a logistical nightmare trying to isolate covid +ve patients from others. They’ve had to cancel all elective surgery as they don’t have the bed capacity or staff to cope. They’ve yet to be hit with the knock on effect of Christmas socialising and new year gatherings.

Staff levels will ebb and flow. Once some go off sick they will be replaced by others returning.

f I'm remembering correctly, 40,000+ NHS staff were off sick at Christmas.

Apologies. Poor memory skills. It was 24,000. 31% of the workforce. Still not good...

Urmstongran

Staff levels will ebb and flow. Once some go off sick they will be replaced by others returning.

It's not a one in, out, situation, Ug.

As covid infection numbers are rising it's inevitable that there will be more staff going off sick than returning.

And, it's possible to be reinfected...

Oops, one in, one out..

Typing skills gone AWOL today, too..

Just watching BBC lunchtime news, they have reported that 4% of NHS staff in London are currently off sick/isolating.

BBC says the number of NHS staff off sick went up by 40% in the last week. That doesn’t sound like one in, one out to me either Urms.

I just hope that staff won’t be pressurised into returning to work until they feel well enough to do so.

MaizieD

^f I'm remembering correctly, 40,000+ NHS staff were off sick at Christmas^.

Apologies. Poor memory skills. It was 24,000. 31% of the workforce. Still not good...

Not sure which section the 31% of the workforce comes from.

As of the 31st August the NHS full time eqivalent of staff was around 1.2M, up 3.1% from 2020 and not including GP's, Dentists and their staff.

Not sure which section the 31% of the workforce comes from.

Nether am I , to be honest! It was what was quoted in the news bulletin...

MayBee70

I just hope that staff won’t be pressurised into returning to work until they feel well enough to do so.

I would imagine that most of them have just tested positive with absolutely no symptoms, just like numerous people I know and hear of.