NHS under pressure: concerns over high demand for hospital beds in Greater Manchester

There is concern among Greater Manchester political leaders about the demand on the NHS across the city-region.

At Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s weekly press conference on Tuesday afternoon (16 November), Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership leader Sir Richard Leese said bed occupancy across the city-region is currently at 93%.

Anything above 85% triggers alarm bells that the health service may become stretched.

Sir Richard said it was vital that people have their Covid-19 vaccination doses and booster jabs throughout this winter when they are called to book appointments.

What is the issue with bed occupancy across Greater Manchester?

Sir Richard said the average bed occupancy across our hospitals is currently 93%, which is above the level at which the NHS is considered to be under pressure.

He said it was also a worry so early in the winter months.

He said: “The threshold at which things become extremely uncomfortable is 85%.

“This is the sort of figure we might expect in January or February in a bad winter.

“There’s an awful lot of concern about the position in the acute sector in potentially the most difficult time of the year.

“The system is doing everything it can to try to free up hospital beds and there is a lot of stress there.”

This is despite the figures related to Covid-19 in hospitals showing some positive signs, with patient admissions, diagnoses in hospitals, intensive care bed occupancy and bed occupancy across the hospitals involving coronavirus all down.

Is there anything the public can do?

Sir Richard said it was vital that people who are ill continue to seek NHS treatment.

However, he said people need to be aware of the situation and to do what they can, particularly driving down their risk of getting Covid-19 by having the vaccines.

He said: “If people are ill we want them to get the care and support they need, but we do need the public to recognise we are in unprecedented levels of demand.

“It’s getting ever more important to maximise the number of people, particularly those at the top end of the age range and in vulnerable groups, getting vaccinated.

“We should soon be able to see how many people are having their boosters, and it’s going to be very important. This is something everybody can do to help us manage that very high level of demand through the care system.”

What else did the Covid-19 data show this week?

Case rates across the 10 Greater Manchester boroughs are falling but remain high overall, with every local authority having more than 250 cases per 100,000 residents in the latest seven-day period up to 11 November.

The overall Greater Manchester rate for the latest week of data is 324.9 cases per 100,000 people.

The case trend among over-60s is also down, and Sir Richard said it showed double vaccination was working to reduce hospital admissions and deaths.

While the heat maps largely show the highest case levels are among children, there are a couple of boroughs with high numbers of cases among working-age people between 30 and 44.

This, Sir Richard suggested, could be due to them “socialising more and living relatively normal lives”.

He said it was important the public recognises “we are still in pandemic conditions”.

Rates of care home residents and staff getting Covid-19 are both relatively stable and fairly low at around 0.8% for the latest week, Sir Richard said.

And he said the overall vaccine figures were “relatively good”, while acknowledging the process of getting younger adults and schoolchildren through having their two doses is still very much going on.

More than 1.8m second doses have now been given. Double vaccination rates by age group vary from 63% among 18-to-49-year-olds to 93% for over-70s, as of 14 November.