Covid: Tees hospitals' patient numbers 'triple those of March'

Almost three times the number of people are being admitted to hospital with Covid compared to when the pandemic began, a Tees health boss has warned.

An average of 20 to 30 patients a day are being hospitalised at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust.

Medical director Dr Deepak Dwarakanath said intensive care beds were "nearly full to capacity".

Concern has also been raised over younger patients due to the spread of the more infectious new strain.

"We are heading towards triple the number of patients we had in March," Dr Dwarakanath said.

"In wave one unfortunately the disease affected a lot of older patients, patients over the age of 60, overweight men, patients with diabetes.

"Wave two is definitely different, it is obviously spreading extremely quickly and the patients we are seeing, probably because the new variant is more infective, are younger people with really no significant background illnesses.

"We are seeing these people come in desperately unwell and some of them obviously requiring intensive care".

The trust, which runs hospitals in Stockton and Hartlepool, has had to "cut right back down to the barest minimum" of elective surgery, due to increased demand caused by the number of Covid admissions.

"We continue with emergency and very urgent surgery and cancer operations. Thereafter we have virtually stopped all other surgery initially for the first two to three weeks of January but I suspect this will need to be longer due to the intense nature of this pandemic," he told BBC Radio Tees.

Dr Dwarakanath said the total number of patients in hospital had "once again" breached the 200 mark and urged people to abide by the lockdown rules.

"During wave one the maximum number of patients we had in at any one time was just under 80," he said.

"Unfortunately, if the current rate of admissions continues we will probably hit around 240 to 250 inpatients with Covid and this is an enormous strain on every aspect of our organisation."

It comes as England's chief medical officer warned the next few weeks will be "the worst" of the pandemic for the NHS.

Thousands of people are due to receive a vaccine after seven mass centres opened across England, including one in Newcastle.

Follow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].