On Easter Sunday 9 April 2023: SO WHERE ARE WE NOW? CONFUSED? WITH QUESTIONS? ANY ANSWERS? WE’RE DOING A LOCAL SURVEY.
“Living with Covid” is now the policy. That’s because Covid is now regarded as ‘another respiratory illness’, like flu. Whilst reasonable and necessary is now the right time to cut back on regular infection information? The weekly ONS infection survey stopped with its report of 24 March, which had the last English infection rate as at 13 March 2023 (see below). At that time the infection rate was still increasing. Testing has been cut back to a bare minimum.
So all we can go on is stale and present data and local intelligence. Our community, GPs and hospitals are still seeing many people with Covid relatively badly and taking longer than usual to recover from it. It is reasonable to hope that after the Easter holidays and settling into the Spring things will improve. Also the most vulnerable are getting Spring Covid booster vaccinations.
Deaths with Covid on death certificates have risen again whilst hospitalisations remain high, with increases for the over 75s and even more for over 85s. FLU infections remain high, particularly for 15-44 year olds. RESPIRATORY SYNCYTIAL VIRUS (RSV) infections are stable. The last reports said: ADENOVIRUS is high for 5-14 year olds; SCARLET FEVER & STREP A infections are higher than normal. Many people getting these infections suffer badly and are left weak and need more time than usual to recover fully.
The sickness bug Norovirus is nearly double the 5-season pre-Covid average, particularly with the over 65s and under 5s. Don’t visit vulnerable people, particularly in care homes or hospitals while having diarrhoea and/or vomiting until 48 hours after symptoms stop. Keep practicing good hand hygiene especially after being unwell, using the toilet or preparing or eating food.
STRIKES of NURSES, PARAMEDICS AND AMBULANCE STAFF are on hold and a settlement is proposed. The strike by JUNIOR DOCTORS in March led to a reported 175,000 cancelled appointments and procedures; they now intend to strike again for 4 days, 11-15 April which is forecasted will lead to 250,000 more cancellations, which will be catastrophic. This dispute must be settled immediately. Thousands of treatments have been lost during recent nurses’ strikes and all these strikes make workloads more challenging, and interrupt tackling the NHS backlogs. 13,000 hospital beds are blocked by patients fit to discharge. 100,101 hospital beds are available (up from 90,621 last year). The cost of agency staff for the NHS in 2021 was £3bn, up 20%.
We are SURVEYing our Dengie & SWF Primary Care Network (PCN) about some key aspects of our health and welfare services and needs. We know there are concerns as well as some really good services and need data and evidence. This is being done for us by a Warwick University Medical School researcher. Unfortunately the dates for this don’t coincide with Focus publications. Full information about this will be signposted on the home page of our website https://swfhealthsocial.co.uk/ . Completed online surveys will be needed by 1 May 2023. Please have your say. Libraries provide online services. If you aren’t online and feel strongly about such things ask someone you know who is online to do it with you.
A new blood test could catch prostate cancer early. Olaparib is a drug to be used in England and Wales to treat some breast and prostate inherited cancers; NICE says this will improve quality of life; it will help around 800 people. Cosmetic procedure numbers recover after Covid.
Spring Covid booster vaccinations will be given to everyone over 75, care-home residents and the most vulnerable people. On Monday 3 April older adults in care homes began to get jabs given by NHS teams visiting them. Other eligible people will start getting their vaccinations from mid-April; booking for these opened on 5 April, with invitations being sent by the NHS App, texts and letters. In the Autumn there will be another full programme of Covid and flu jabs, for the same cohorts as in 2022.
The Dashboard says in w/e 10 March in England there were 531 (p/w 473) Deaths with Covid on death certificates and in w/e 3 April 5,759 (p/w 6,307) patients admitted to hospital. Hospitalisations and deaths lag behind infections. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) data estimates 1,489,600 (1 in 38) people in England had Covid in w/e 13 March (p/w 1,332,800 = 1 in 40). Taking the ONS estimate and SWF’s population as 16,000 that means there were 421 (p/w 400) SWF residents with Covid in w/e 13 March. 2.2m people in the UK have long Covid; 80+ in the SWF & Dengie area. If you think you have long-Covid see your GP for a diagnosis & referral to a local recovery service. Covid testing has been scaled back further in England from April. Most staff and patients in hospitals and care homes will no longer be tested unless staff are working with severely immunocompromised patients or if there’s an outbreak for example on a ward, in a hospice or a prison. But this can be scaled up again quickly if there’s another big Covid wave or new variant. The “Living with Covid” approach relies on vaccines to keep people safe.
The Government says to AVOID CATCHING & SPREADING COVID & OTHER INFECTIONS: TAKE EXTRA CARE, IF UNWELL AVOID VULNERABLE FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES & RELATIVES; ventilate indoor meetings; meet outdoors; wear face coverings in crowded enclosed spaces. If you get Covid stay home if you can and avoid contact with other people.
SWF Health & Social Care Group provides health & social care information and signposting to people, especially those at risk, isolating, housebound, and without local support. Information is on our website https://swfhealthsocial.co.uk/ . Contact us on swfhealthsocial@outlook.com or leave a voicemail on 01245 322079 which is monitored daily. Happy Easter!
SWF Health & Social Care Group 