Health bosses offer reassurance as number of critical care beds in Yorkshire falls

NHS England said it is “well prepared” to deal with seriously ill patients in Yorkshire, despite the number of critical care beds available falling.
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During Tuesday’s daily press briefing from Downing Street, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance showed a graph depicting the number of available critical care beds in England by NHS region.

The graph showed the number of beds available in the North East and Yorkshire had fallen from Sunday (April 5) to Monday (April 6). It was the only region to show a decline. It was not shown during Wednesday’s briefing to allow for a comparison.

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NHS England have now offered reassurance on the fall in available beds.

The number of critical care beds available in the North East and Yorkshire fell from April 5 to April 6.The number of critical care beds available in the North East and Yorkshire fell from April 5 to April 6.
The number of critical care beds available in the North East and Yorkshire fell from April 5 to April 6.

In a statement, they said: “We are well prepared in the North East and Yorkshire, with significant numbers of extra beds on standby for local services should they need them during the peak of the coronavirus outbreak.”

A spokesperson said it is important not to read too much into short term data trends on capacity and bed usage “as these can be easily skewed by normal day-to-day variations.”

They also said the NHS Nightingale hospitals will further increase capacity across the health system when operational. The Nightingale hospital in Harrogate, which will serve some patients in Yorkshire, is expected to be ready later this week.

NHS England has recorded 765 new deaths in hospital from coronavirus in the last 24 hours. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in England is now 7,248.